Biography

Born in Marseilles in 1961, Olivier Bellamy animates a daily program on Radio Classique. He is also the author of several documentaries on television, such as the TV show “À Contretemps” on France 3, and has a blog on the Huffington Post.

“The apartment of music geniuses rarely displays outward signs of wealth. The armchairs have the necessary comfort to rest after hard day of labour or to accommodate friends, the table is used to absorb three meals per day, paintings, even signed by prestigious names, are memories above all, even gifts from famous painters or not. Nothing ostentatious. The grand piano occupies the central part of the living room. It is not a piece of furniture; it is an instrument of work. It is thus not waxed and surmounted by decorative trinkets as among amateurs or bourgeois who do not play it, but it is covered with partitions, letters of congratulations, contract on standby, concert programs.”

“In 1936, starts one of the bloodiest Stalinist purge of the Bolshevik history. It is the moment that Serge Prokofiev chooses to return to the U.S.S.R. and to settle there with his family. It is the moment also where he writes and composes Pierre and the wolf, his famous musical tale for children. The Russian Mozart throws himself in the wolf’s mouth. He will leave there until his death.

In this funny and cruel novel, the author imagines the circumstances and the dramatic consequences of this decision. Through the destiny of a man, it is the history of the first half of the 20th century, which we revive: Paris shining and cosmopolitan, the war, the Soviet relentless machine. It is also the seizing portrait of a genius composer who goes through hell to reach the divine. And of a free woman who will pay the expensive price for her absolute love. It is finally the way of the cross that any artist between Good and Evil traverses. ” (Presentation of the editor)