Kolkhoz

byEmmanuel Carrère, John Lambert (Translator)
WINNER OF THE PRIX MÉDICIS 2025

A landmark work of memoir by one of France’s most important writers


Written in the aftermath of his mother’s death, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, a leading authority on Soviet and Russian history, Kolkhoz is a multi-layered personal history of France, Ukraine and Russia through four generations of Emmanuel Carrère’s family, mapping personal and familial anecdotes against a wider historical, cultural and political backdrop.

Written in his renowned, distilled and captivating prose, Carrère seamlessly moves from the biographical to the historical – the public to the private – to piece together both a fascinating, multigenerational family history and a vivid portrait of a tumultuous period of European and Russian history, right through to the war in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic and his mother’s death in 2023.

Kolkhoz is a landmark work of memoir by one of France’s most important writers. Expansive and grossing, it is perhaps Carrère’s most personal and ambitious work to date – a love letter to the family who raised and shaped him, and his ode to the persistence of the human spirit.
Kolkhoze is poignant and deeply novelistic, abounding in wonderful anecdotes… it is Carrère’s best, alongside Limonov
Times Literary Supplement

About Emmanuel Carrère

Emmanuel Carrère, novelist, filmmaker, journalist, and biographer, is the award-winning internationally renowned author of The Adversary (a New York Times Notable Book), Lives Other Than My Own, My Life As A Russian Novel, Class Trip, Limonov and The Mustache.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781529981827
  • Length: 416 pages
  • Price: £10.99
All editions