There are memories that seem like small family rituals that, many years later, become the key to telling an entire existence. For Emmanuel Carrère, one of these memories has a curious and affectionate name: “doing kolchoz”. As children, he and his sisters transformed their parents' bedroom into a common place, sleeping all together. Years later, as adults, they will repeat that ritual beside their mother, in the hospice, during the last night of her life.
It is from that moment that the book is born and a great family narrative takes shape, both intimate and historical. Carrère reconstructs the stories of the two families from which his mother descends, between Russia and Georgia, crossing wars, revolutions, migrations, and extraordinary destinies. At the center is Hélène Zourabichvili, a complex and indomitable mother, who became one of the leading French scholars of the Soviet Union and Russia, eventually reaching the heights of the Académie française.
Without hiding contradictions, harshness, and fragility, Carrère presents the portrait of a beloved and difficult woman, transforming the private story into a family saga capable of interrogating History.
A meeting with one of the great contemporary storytellers, to hear from his voice how memory, identity, filial love, and history can intertwine until they become literature.
Free entry until seats are filled - With Francesco Chiamulera and Sonia Folin
