Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois

The quiet, pensive alleys of the famous "Russian" cemetery in the Parisian suburb of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois invite peace and reflection on the eternal. But the silence is deceptive. A chance encounter at one of the ancient gravestones turns the life of a successful Russian businessman into a living hell. The past suddenly flings open its doors before him, and within lies a succession of tragic events. The present day and the distant past are mysteriously intertwined on the pages of the novel. St. Petersburg welcoming the fateful year of 1917, and the bloody repressions of the "knights of the revolution" in 1920; modern Paris and a ruined ancient monastery lost in the steppe expanses of southern Russia, preserving a terrible secret in its ruins — a secret whose unraveling will cost more than one human life… The terrifying phantasmagorias ultimately lead to one postulate: everything in this life must be paid for, and if a person does not manage to do so themselves, their loved ones or distant descendants become the debtors. Retribution is inevitable. It is sternly demanded by the inexorable emissaries of the past… Both of Marina Yudenich's previous novels became popular and sparked the most heated debates. Critics and journalists defined their genre as psychological prose with elements of mysticism — a new and vivid phenomenon in contemporary Russian literature. The novel "Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois" brilliantly continues this tradition.