Speaking in 2018 of his longstanding enthrallment with Russia, French writer Olivier Rolin extols the Russians’ effusiveness and hospitality, and marvels about their country’s immense spaces, extreme weather, dramatic history and literature or, more specifically, ‘le grand roman russe’ / ‘the great Russian novel’. Reciprocally, Rolin is flattered by the Russians’ enduring interest in French culture, as manifest in the large turnout to a reading of Claude Simon’s reputedly inaccessible novel, L’Acacia. Rolin’s engrossment with Russia’s exotic charm and incongruities illustrates what literary journalist Grégoire Leménager recognises as the rebirth of the Russophile French writer, a rebirth that he finds incongruous with Putin’s recent handling of home and international affairs. To substantiate his point, Leménager lists Russia’s annexation of Crimea, invasion of eastern Ukraine, support for Bashar al-Assad and shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, as well as the assassination of Boris Nemcov and persecution of opposition figures.