Escape from Siberia

- Blurb -

A captivating tale - and extremely well written' -Le Figaro litteraire ' A staggering testimony' -Livres HebdoNerve-wrecking' -Le Monde' A spectacular story' -L' Obs' An utterly chilling tale' -France Inter' The scene unfolds not far from Lake Baikal, where I live and love and am lucky enough to be loved, in Irkutsk, the capital of eastern Siberia. It' s morning, men in balaclavas appear out of nowhere. My daughter screams. She' s five years old. I' m arrested right in front of her, then beaten - expertly - and interrogated. Worst of all I' m branded with that ignominious word I struggle to commit to paper: paedophile. These men hidden behind balaclavas and shadows want my skin. They have set in motion an implacable and brutish process of destruction that has a name, a name I know, invented by the KGB: Kompromat. Inside Siberia' s prisons, I try to understand. In the psychiatric hospital where I' m later interned, I try to understand. I' m guaranteed fifteen years of a gruelling camp. The story of my escapes can begin. I haven' t invented anything. It' s a film, but it isn' t. It' s a novel, but it isn' t. It' s all true. . .