The fact that my mother had written a book impressed me a lot.

“AROUND THIS TIME my mother, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, who’s since become a renowned historian in her own right, published her first book, Marxism and Asia. The fact that my mother had written a book impressed me a lot. I tried to read it, but I got stuck on the very first four words, which read: “Marxism, as everyone knows…”
― Emmanuel Carrère, Limonov: The Outrageous Adventures of the Radical Soviet Poet Who Became a Bum in New York, a Sensation in France, and a Political Antihero in Russia