Haunted by the ghost of an insatiable tsarina

Andrei Makine: in search of a homeland that no longer exists Picture: Getty

FICTION

A Woman Loved

By Andreï Makine

MacLehose, €23

Franco-Russian writer Andreï Makine is like a parent who has lost a child, trapped in a cycle of grief, relentlessly excavating its memory in the hopeless search for a resolution. Russia is his lost child. He believes his homeland has been doomed by westernisation and yet is devoid of what he sees as its only perks – freedom of speech and human rights.

The ...