Les Exilés du Caucase

Land of legends and memory of men, will Caucasia ever live in peace? Today as yesterday, in the days of Yeltsin as in those of the Czar, in Circassia as in Chechnya or in Dagestan, Caucasians are dying for their freedom.

Les Exilés du Caucase relates the struggle of these mountain dwellers, recounts the tremendous epic of Sheikh Mansour and his Tcherkess descendants, driven out of Caucasia in the second half of the XIXth century, then taken in by the Sultan before settling in the Balkans, East of the Jordan, in Lebanon and Syria where they serve under the French Army of the Levant, and take part in the fighting pitting the Allied against the Vichyists.

Will the cunning curse hounding these people, renowned for the beauty of their women, ever come to an end? Will Sheikh Mansour's sons, disunited by fate, succeed in patching up the fragments of their shattered family? Will the courage of Seteney, an exemplary wife and mother and a warior in times of danger, suffice to exorcise the ghost of exile?

A historical saga set in burning current events, les Exilés du Caucase skims through two centuries and six countries, stages epic characters such as Imam Chamil, "The Dagestan Lion", Czar Alexander II, Lawrence of Arabia, General De Gaulle, Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk", Joseph Kessel, Moshé Dayan... and pays tribute to the resistance fighters, anonymous heroes of battles that the world witnesses with a "foolish indifference"...

"A great ride"
J.P. Péroncel-Hugoz
Le Monde

"The tragedy of these untamable people was a beautiful subject. Alexandre Najjar did not ruin it."
Eric Deschodt
Valeurs actuelles

"A fantastic and tragic epic"

"A magnificent and great, very great novel"
Luxemburger Wort

"Najjar has style and his novel is enthralling"
Le Devoir (Québec)

"Alexandre Najjar is one of the best hopes of French-speaking literature"
Le Journal de Genève