SOURCE: Champagne, Roland A. Review of Requiem for a Lost Empire, by Andreï Makine. World Literature Today 76, no. 1 (winter 2002): 181.

In the following review, Champagne contends that Makine's ability to skillfully narrate a story is displayed in Requiem for a Lost Empire.

There is sadness and joy in [Requiem for a Lost Empire,] this recollection of being a Russian in the twentieth century and experiencing war from the Russian Revolution to the Cold War. Andreï Makine once again uses his fine narrating skills to re-create the heritage of what was once called the USSR or the Soviet Union. His narrator moves back and forth in time to recall the military suffering and cruelty he himself experiences as a political agent in the cold war combined with his father's harrowing work as a corpsman against the Nazis and his grandfather's memories as a foot soldier against the Whites during the...