Confessions of a Lapsed Standard-Bearer

Andreï Makine was born in Siberia in 1957, and taught at the University of Novgorod. In 1987 he left the Soviet Union and sought asylum in France, where he lived rough before finding teaching work. He is the author of the bestselling Le Testament Français, winner of the Prix Goncourt and Prix Médicis, and an international bestseller. Confessions of a Lapsed Standard-Bearer, his second novel, is his third to be published in English, following The Crime of Olga Arbyelina (Sceptre, 1999).