Far from the Red Forests, Claude Duneton

In 1991, post-Soviet Russia drifted aimlessly. In the faded splendor of Saint Petersburg, Claude Duneton discovered the ruins of communism, which had been the ideal of his youth. Sharing the difficult lives of the inhabitants, the narrator plunged back into the magic of vanished hopes. A peasant family in Limousin, where the names of Stalin and Thorez resonated like those of ancient heroes. And where the anticipation of the "Grand Soir" made it possible to endure social injustice, the early apprenticeship of children... In a rich and precise language, Duneton revives the world of the workshops he knew too early, "the smell of drills, of that milky product used to coat the bits, mixed with filings." Then, rebellion seemed self-evident... Between the old French communist dream with its local flavor and the lost illusions of today's Russia, this narrative unfolds in a tender and painful back-and-forth. Denouncing the great ideological imposture, "Loin des forêts rouges" is also a non-bitter meditation on a generation of dupes, both East and West, who retained the strength to hope.