SOURCE: Picone, Jason. Review of Requiem for a Lost Empire, by Andreï Makine. Review of Contemporary Fiction 27, no. 1 (spring 2002): 125.

In the following review, Picone asserts that Makine “continues to earn the sky-high literary comparisons … thrust upon him.”

Makine's latest novel [Requiem for a Lost Empire] is a terminal tour of the violent episodes endured by Russia in the twentieth century. A saga that spans three generations of Russian soldiers, Requiem maintains an epic feel through its sweeping variation of setting and character. The novel's narrator haunts Third World hotspots around the end of the cold war, reminiscing about his past as he plays at espionage for the homeland. Unable to make sense of the Soviet collapse, he examines his family history for an explanation, beginning with his grandfather, Nikolai. A deserter from the Red Army during the October Revolution, Nikolai sickens of killing and simply returns home, vainly...