Longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize
"Its simplicity lends it grandeur. One thinks of Maxim Gorky, or even the early sketches of Tolstoy."
-The Wall Street Journal
"A small miracle of a book, perfectly imagined and perfectly achieved."
-Hilary Mantel, author of Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies
A novel of war, revolution, youth, and friendship by the "remarkable" (Ian McEwan) French author of A Meal in Winter Hubert Mingarelli's simple, powerful, and moving stories of men in combat have established him as one of the most exciting new voices in international fiction.
In Four Soldiers he tells the story of four young soldiers in 1919, members of the Red Army during the Russian civil war. It is set in the harsh dead of winter, just as the soldiers set up camp in a forest in Galicia near the Romanian front line. Due to a lull in fighting, their days are taken up with the mundane tasks of trying to scratch together what food and comforts they can find, all the time while talking, smoking, and waiting. Waiting specifically for spring to come. Waiting for their battalion to move on. Waiting for the inevitable resumption of violence.
Recalling great works like Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Four Soldiers is a timeless and tender story of young male friendships and the small, idyllic moments of happiness that can illuminate the darkness of war.
Industry Reviews
Praise for Hubert Mingarelli's A Meal in Winter
"The book's deceptive directness and simplicity, and its muted undercurrents of horror, will make many think of the stories of Ernest Hemingway. This is painful, unconsoling reading, but also a reminder of the power a short, perfect work of fiction can wield."
--Wall Street Journal "Stark and profound."
--New York Times
"Fine reading, not just for those interested in the war."
--Library Journal
"The command of tone and voice sustains tension until the very last page of a novel that will long resonate in the reader's conscience."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Masterful. . . . Mingarelli offers a new twist on the Holocaust novel. His spare prose, crisply translated by Sam Taylor, adds to the narrative's intensity and keeps you turning the pages until its poignant conclusion."
--The Huffington Post
"It is 138 profound pages of horror and humanity."
--Book of the Year, the Irish Times
"Short, powerful, vivid, and utterly compelling."
--The Jewish Chronicle
"Haunting. . . . With devastating concision, Mingarelli and his translator, Sam Taylor, carry the moral dilemma to an understated yet stunning conclusion."
--Publishers Weekly (starred)
"A luminous tale. . . . The most moving book I have read for a long time."
--The Independent on Sunday
"A masterpiece."
--The Independent
"This strong and simple story packs a mighty punch."
--The Times (London)
"Beautiful and disturbing, complex and surprising. . . . This is not easy for the reader to handle, but Mingarelli knows what he is doing."
--The Herald (Glasgow)
