A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich: Julian Barnes's first novel since his best-selling, Man Booker Prize-winning The Sense of an Ending.
In 1936, Shostakovich, just thirty, fears for his livelihood and his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has taken a sudden interest in his work and denounced his latest opera. Now, certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, executed on the spot), Shostakovich reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, various women and wives, his children--and all who are still alive themselves hang in the balance of his fate. And though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, for decades to come he will be held fast under the thumb of despotism: made to represent Soviet values at a cultural conference in New York City, forced into joining the Party and compelled, constantly, to weigh appeasing those in power against the integrity of his music. Barnes elegantly guides us through the trajectory of Shostakovich's career, at the same time illuminating the tumultuous evolution of the Soviet Union. The result is both a stunning portrait of a relentlessly fascinating man and a brilliant exploration of the meaning of art and its place in society."synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"Exquisite." --O Magazine
"Stands in an honored literary tradition that includes such predecessors as Barnard Malamud's The Fixer, Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son or this year's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen [and] another even more audacious tradition, one that includes J.M. Coetzee's The Master of Petersburg, Colm Tóibín's The Master, and Kafka's Leopards by Moacyr Scliar. . . . What can be more ambitious than a writer who seeks to capture the inner life of another great artist?" --Chauncy Mabe, The Miami Herald
Art and Power collide in Julian Barnes’s first novel since the Booker-winning The Sense of An Ending
A Daily Telegraph / Financial Times / Guardian / Sunday Times / The Times / New Statesman / Observer Book of the Year
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