Henri Troyat — writer with roots in the Russian Empire
Henri Troyat (born Lev Aslanovitch Tarassov) was a Russian-French novelist and biographer who became one of the most prolific and celebrated French writers of the 20th century. His biographies of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Chekhov, and Ivan the Terrible are landmarks of the genre, and his novels earned him the Prix Goncourt.
Tracing the roots — Moscow
Born in Moscow in 1911 and emigrating with his family after the Bolshevik revolution, Troyat became the supreme cultural bridge between Russia and France. Writing entirely in French, he spent his career translating the Russian soul for Western readers — a project of extraordinary fidelity and literary power.
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Moscow. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"To write about Russia, I had to become French. Only from a distance can you see the whole."