The Earth and Sky of Jacques Dorme

At the heart of the epic novel lies a brief, intense love affair between a Frenchwoman and a French pilot on the eve of the battle for Stalingrad. Decades later, the Russian who has a lonely orphan was inspired by their story returns to Siberia to track its tragic ending. Spanning fifty years of Russian history from World War II to the post-Soviet era, this is profoundly moving tale of heroism, passion and decency in the face of crazed ideology, and of a modern world that seems to have forgotten the lessons of the past.