Andrei Makine was born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1957 and has lived in France since 1987. With his fourth novel, Le Testament Français, he became the first author to win both of France’s top literary prizes, the Prix Goncourt and Prix Me?dicis. It has gone on to sell more than a million copies and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. He divides his time between Paris and a village in Southwestern France.