Cédric Gras est né en 1982. Il a mené de front voyages au long cours, passion de la montagne et études de géographie, avant de s'expatrier une décennie dans l'espace post-soviétique, dirigeant notamment des Alliances françaises. Les immensités de la Sibérie et de l'Extrême-Orient russe, la guerre en Ukraine ou l'Antarctique ont notamment nourri ses récits et romans. Il collabore régulièrement à diverses publications et magazines, des traductions ou des films documentaires. Il a reçu le prix Albert-Londres en 2020 pour son livre Alpinistes de Staline.
In the winter of 2014, in an overwhelmed Ukraine, the furious crowd began to kill all Communist idols. It destroyed the plasters, granites, bronzes, cast iron, effigies, it destroyed the great Lenin, the small ones, the statues where he showed the (blocked) way. It was knocking at the spectre of a USSR haunting her. It unleashed its hatred against Soviet ghosts, carving it all into pieces and watching over it until dawn, as if the sculptures had the power to stand upright in the night. And somehow that's what happened: the empire was revived. »
Between civil war and anthracite mines, two childhood friends cross their native Donbass in a tragic and comical road-trip. A great contemporary journey.
Presentation of the editor.