Fleeing the war on board ’A blue Lada«

Geneva-based author Michaël Perruchoud has chosen the war in Chechnya as the backdrop for his new novel. In this work, he examines the compromises everyone is prepared to make in order to survive.

There are four of them in Michaël Perruchoud's latest novel, A blue Lada, published in autumn 2022 by Cousu Mouche. Four barely-adult girls: Katarina, Zilia, Laoura and Saïda. The year is 1999, Grozny, Chechnya. For the second time in the recent history of this former Soviet republic, war is approaching, as Russian troops advance under the impetus, already, of a certain Vladimir Putin.

Michaël Perruchoud never indulges in bloodshed. Fighting never appears in the pages of’A blue Lada. But the consequences of this conflict are present on almost every page, in this portrait of a world falling apart.

Faced with these four teenage girls, no one comes out on top. The warlords - presented as heroes by some of the population - are in fact brutes consumed by greed and bloodlust. Russian soldiers, if not liberators, are out-of-control drunks. Humanitarians are not so altruistic. And even the parents are resigned, cowardly, paralyzed by fear, tradition and their own contradictions.

A refuge from war

Faced with them, these young girls have no one to turn to but themselves. This blue Lada abandoned at the back of a courtyard is their refuge from death and bombardment. Here, they can turn 18 and sing at the top of their lungs to old 80s hits. It is also this blue Lada that takes them to freedom, a symbol of hope and a second life.

But there's no Hollywood happy ending in this novel, no larger-than-life hero who saves these teenagers and leads them to a brighter tomorrow. Katarina, Zilia, Laoura and Saïda do not emerge unscathed. To survive, they too will have to grow up and make compromises and compromises with their consciences and ideals.

Katarina is desperate to return to St. Petersburg and her old life, and will stop at nothing to achieve this. The wise Laoura must renounce everything her upbringing has taught her in order to find a protector for her sister and herself. And even the independent Zilia, who dreams of freedom in the West, seems for a moment to question her choices in the face of uncertainty and solitude.

Uhe blue Lada is a book that can be read in one sitting, because it focuses on the most human part of each of us. No one in this book is completely innocent. There are cracks, dashed hopes, jealousies. War doesn't necessarily bring out the best in all of us, when hunger, cold and death lurk.

This novel also raises some highly topical questions, as the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine approaches. How do you get through war when you're 18 and have barely lived? What are you prepared to give up to survive? Do the ends always justify the means? Katarina, Laoura, Zilia and Saïda have made their choice. It's up to us to make ours.

Photo credit: © DR

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Michaël Perruchoud 
A blue Lada 
Editions Cousu Mouche
2022 
234 pages 

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