Editions Radio France //book: “Anna Akhmatova, portrait” Geneviève Brisac (ed. Seghers- France Culture)

Lhe portrait of a great Russian poet and heroine of the 20th century

At the age of twenty-three, in 1912, Anna Akhmatova achieved fame when she published her first collection, The evening. She expresses the ambiguity of romantic relationships with a singular genius, all irony and restraint which will make her an idol in Russia. The following collections affirmed her modernity and her popularity, until, in 1922, the regime condemned her to silence. She was subject to censorship until her death in 1966.

Her work coincides with a century of iron and a life marked by the assassination of her two husbands, the deportation of her son, the violent death of all her friends, from Mandelstam to Tsvetaïeva. Anna Akhmatova sang of crimes and mass suffering in splendid texts, which those close to her must learn by heart to ensure their longevity, and thus allow the triumph of poetry over barbarism.
“ If her poems are love poems, the collective tragedy that Anna Akhmatova goes through with her people is the common thread of her work. A tragedy that she prophesied and translated throughout her life… Her songs of love and despair form the most modest and heartbreaking of autobiographies “.

Of this immense poet, who is also a heroine, and for many a kindred spirit, Geneviève Brisac paints a passionate portrait, full of life, strength, beauty.

Graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, associate professor of letters, teacher, journalist, editor, novelist (1996 Femina Prize for Mother Hunting Weekend), essayist, author of works for young people, Geneviève Brisac was a literary critic at World for around twenty years and has collaborated for twenty years in France Culture. This work is adapted from the Great Crossing of France Culture : Anna Akhmatova, the unknown woman from Leningrad.