Marina YALOYAN
News
The novel Children of Perestroika, ("La petite pianiste d'Erevan"), will appear in May 2026 with Albin Michel in France.
"
Every single thing in our apartment now serves a single purpose: it must burn.
And yet, there is never enough to burn.
First the old recipes vanish into smoke. Then newspapers, magazines, address books, essays, school notebooks. The forests around the city burn too. The furniture. The doors. Wooden dolls. The floorboards. The clogs and the playgrounds of my childhood.
When nothing remains, the books come next.
I often reread them — one last time. I learn them by heart. I copy out whole passages, or hide them beneath my bed, or in my wardrobe under old clothes, like prisoners awaiting execution. But they are almost always discovered, and my father loses his temper.
He carries them back to the dining room and feeds them to the flames just to warm a little soup…
"
About
Educated between New York and Los Angeles, I graduated top of my class from Columbia University and UCLA. From the very beginning, my life and work have taken shape within a fluid geography of languages, cultures, and narratives.
Writing has been at the center of my life since childhood. From the age of ten, it has been the intimate space where thought, memory, and imagination converge.
Informed by the great French, Russian, and American literary traditions, I have spent years crossing borders, moving between different countries and languages. The constant change of successive social and cultural landscapes has helped me shape a voice that is both cosmopolitan and finely attuned. My work draws on this experience of migrations and movement to explore history, identity, and what endures beyond them.
Alongside my literary work, I have pursued a career in journalism for French television (M6, France 24). In addition, I currently serve as Director of International Affairs at the French Parliamentary Journal and Diplomatic News,. I am also Head of International Relations at the Comité de l’Europe, and Professor of Geopolitics and Communication at HEC Paris.
Media & Meetings
avec Alain Malraux, Président de la Commission Malraux.
Tournage