Eastbound

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK 2023; A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023; A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022; A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022; On the Trans-Siberian Railway a desperate Russian conscript hopes a chance encounter with an older French woman will offer him a line of flight.; Published in France one year after Kerangal’s award-winning novel Birth of a Bridge, Eastbound breathes new life into the Russian literary archetype of the rebel soldier and revives the reality of disempowerment of the Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint Petersburg protest. Inspired by her observations on the ground as she travelled on the Trans-Siberian from Novossibirsk to Vladivostok.