They may be rooted in his own experience, but his books are also full of amazing digressions, little essays - on how to make cognac, on the history of the Armenian book, on anything and everything. And yet these digressions are always integral to the conception of the work. That is really the most important thing one can say about him. That he was walking north to south. It is as if J M Coetzee's Michael K has just wandered into The Shadow of the Sun .
Terror turns gives way to absurd slapstick, and vice versa.
Either way, an endless capacity for astonishment holds sway. He is an unflinching witness and an exuberant stylist. And yet several fiction writers I've spoken with seem not even to have heard of him. In this respect he is the victim of a received cultural prejudice that assumes fiction to be the loftiest perch of literary distinction in prose. Because it is translated non-fiction, The Shadow of the Sun is ineligible for a number of literary prizes.