Gouzel Iakhina's novel on Eisenstein makes the Femina foreign-fiction longlist

Gouzel Iakhina's novel "Eisen" has been included in the first selection of foreign novels for the Prix Femina, according to Le Temps. The book, 520 pages long, is a fictional portrait of Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), the Soviet director who transformed film editing and the art of visual storytelling in the 1920s with works such as "Le Cuirassé Potemkine" and "Octobre".

Iakhina presented the novel at Livre sur les quais, in Morges, in an interview conducted through her translator, Maud Mabillard, as reported by Le Temps. She described Eisenstein's genius as having been placed in service of a revolutionary mysticism meant to galvanize crowds, while his art kept evolving over the years.

According to Le Temps, the character who emerges from the novel is stout, unkempt, high-voiced, alternately brilliant, sharply ironic, courageous and odious — a man who advances behind a mask, except perhaps when he weeps in the arms of the mother he despises, or when he is at work editing his films.

Le Temps describes "Eisen" as a tragedy about the relationship between art and totalitarian power, denouncing the violence a regime can inflict on artistic creation. The newspaper suggests the novel can draw in readers even if they have never seen any of Eisenstein's films.