This page-turning biography follows in the footsteps of a forgotten legend of the Russian Revolution. Yakov Blumkin claimed to have had nine lives. He was a terrorist, the assassin of the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach, a poet close to the ...
This page-turning biographical novel follows the footsteps of a forgotten legend of the Russian Revolution, from Odessa to Moscow, Istanbul, and beyond.Yakov Blumkin claimed to have had nine lives. Born to a poor Jewish family and orphaned as a ch...
"A compelling and very readable polemic." Financial Times "French writer Salmon here treats us to the useful spectacle of a relentless polemic against a ubiquitous idea widely held to provoke only positive feelings. As used by branders or politicians, 'storytelling' is, on his argument, a sedative, suppressing the desire for truth in favour of satisfying narrative form." Steven Poole, Guardian
CHRISTIAN SALMON is a writer and researcher in the Centre for Research in the Arts and Language at the CNRS in Paris. He is the founder of the International Parliament of Writers, of which he was president from 1993 to 2003, and is the author of several works, including Tombeau de la fiction, Devenir minoritaire and Verbicide. He writes a regular column for Le Monde.