Overview

This page-turning biographical novel follows the footsteps of a forgotten legend of the Russian Revolution, from Odessa to Moscow, Istanbul, and beyond. Yakov Blumkin claimed to have had nine lives. Born to a poor Jewish family and orphaned as a child, he was a Socialist Revolutionary, a terrorist, the assassin of the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach, a poet close to the avant-garde, a member of Cheka, a military strategist, a secret agent, and Leon Trotsky's secretary. Executed in 1929 on Stalin's orders at the age of only twenty-nine, he has continued to inspire a powerful curiosity, and wild rumors and falsehoods about his extraordinary life abound today. As a young man in 1980s Paris, Christian Salmon identified strongly as a Bolshevik, drawn to the glorious October Revolution immortalized in literature and films such as Warren Beatty's Reds and Sergei Eisenstein's trilogy. Picking up the thread of his dream thirty years later, he sets out to reconstruct Blumkin's shadowy past and ever-shifting identity with a trove of manuscripts, documents, rare photographs, and personal souvenirs.

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A genuine swashbuckling adventure story, Salmon's book builds on episodes of spectacular, even extraordinary battles...Remarkable. -- Liberation An investigation that reads like a spy novel, but a true novel in which we encounter Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, and Victor Serge. -- Livres Hebdo For this man of many identities, each past episode consists of multiple versions...As an expert in the art of narrative, Christian Salmon understands what is most fascinating about this period of history: that the contemporaries of the revolution were, as the poet Mandelstam wrote, 'cast out of their own biographies.' -- Le Monde des livres

The Blumkin Project is a tale of espionage, revolution, assassination, revenge, and betrayal. It's a saga, a fantasy, a historical document, a mystery, a love story, and a coming-of-age--all with the added benefit of being compelling, eye-opening, and even (possibly) true! -- Alina Adams, author of The Nesting Dolls A brilliant multilayered construction, part memoir and part biography of legendary revolutionary Yakov Blumkin. This is both a page-turner and a beautifully written book--an enlightening and exciting must-read for anyone interested in the Russian Revolution or twentieth-century Europe. -- Ariana Neumann, New York Times bestselling author An intriguing Russian saga, full of politics, treachery, and a sharp stamp of authenticity. Richly evocative. -- Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author A genuine swashbuckling adventure story, Salmon's book builds on episodes of spectacular, even extraordinary battles...Remarkable. -- Liberation An investigation that reads like a spy novel, but a true novel in which we encounter Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, and Victor Serge. -- Livres Hebdo For this man of many identities, each past episode consists of multiple versions...As an expert in the art of narrative, Christian Salmon understands what is most fascinating about this period of history: that the contemporaries of the revolution were, as the poet Mandelstam wrote, 'cast out of their own biographies.' -- Le Monde des livres

Author Information

Christian Salmon is a writer and researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). He founded and was a member of the International Parliament of Writers from 1993 to 2003. He is the author of several books, including Verbicide, Devenir minoritaire: Pour une nouvelle politique de la litt�rature (coauthored with Joseph Hanimann), and Tombeau de la fiction. William Rodarmor is a published author, illustrator, and translator of children's and young adult books. His published credits include The Last Giants, The Old Man Mad About Drawing: A Tale of Hokusai, Catherine Certitude, and Ultimate Game: A Novel. Ramiz Monsef has spent several seasons as a member of Oregon Shakespeare Festival's acting company, and he is the playwright of OSF's 2013 production The Unfortunates. He has also appeared onstage in New York and in numerous regional productions.

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