- Published: 04/10/2018
- ISBN: 9781846276521
- Granta Books
- 160 pages
Four Soldiers
Hubert Mingarelli
Translated by Sam Taylor
LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2019
‘I am astonished by Four Soldiers. I have never read anything like it, yet it is one of those books you feel must always have existed, a classic of writing about the human condition… A small miracle’ Hilary Mantel
1919. The Russian Civil War. It is the harsh dead of winter, as four soldiers set up camp in a forest somewhere near the Romanian front line. There is a lull in the fighting, so their days are filled with precious hours of freedom, enjoying the tranquillity of a nearby pond and trying to forget their terrifying nightmares, all the while talking, smoking and waiting. Waiting for spring to come, waiting for their battalion to move on, waiting for the inevitable resumption of violence. Tightly focused and simply told, this is a story of friendship and the fragments of happiness that can illuminate the darkness of war.
£12.99
The French writer Hubert Mingarelli [...] is a master of lyrical restraint... Mingarelli can count himself lucky in having Sm Taylor as his translator in English... Taylor has once again brought to an English-speaking readership a troubling and compelling tale of memory and fragility from a matchless stylist
Michael Crown, Irish Times
I am astonished by Four Soldiers. I have never read anything like it, yet it is one of those books you feel must always have existed, a classic of writing about the human condition. Short and deceptively simple, it reads like a message from the unheard, news from unwitnessed lives, building letter by letter to its crushing final page. A small miracle of a book, perfectly imagined and perfectly achieved
Hilary Mantel
Extraordinary... [Mingarelli] has crafted a moving work...The novel has an elemental quality that is entirely right for the pitilessness of war
