| Music of a Life | |
| Author: | Andreï Makine |
| Title Orig: | La Musique d'une vie |
| Translator: | Geoffrey Strachan |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
| Publisher: | Éditions du Seuil (France) Arcade Books (UK) |
| Pub Date: | 2001 |
| Pages: | 132 |
| Isbn: | 9782020483438 |
Music of a Life is a 2001 novella by the French writer Andreï Makine. A tale of Soviet oppression, it tells the story of a talented Russian piano player who has to abandon his career right before his first concert, flees to the countryside and adopts the identity of a dead soldier.
Publishers Weekly wrote: "It's a simple story, but Makine's lovely lyric writing—excellently translated—in which the scenes are imagined with a sharply cinematic focus, gives it considerable depth and emotion; the quiet ending, back in the present time, is wrenching."[1]
The book was awarded the Grand prix RTL-Lire.[2]