Stories About Free Time

Gaito Gazdanov (1903–1971) is among the most interesting writers of the Russian emigration. After the revolution, Gazdanov joined the White movement and was subsequently forced to leave his homeland forever, sharing the fate of many Russian emigrants. He spent most of his life in Paris; for many years, he worked as a night taxi driver, and since 1953, he was a correspondent and later an editor at “Radio Liberty.” Gazdanov gained notoriety after the publication of his first novel “Evening with Claire” (1929), which became a significant event in literary life, opening the doors of leading émigré journals to the young author. His contemporaries placed him alongside Vladimir Nabokov in terms of talent and compared him to Marcel Proust and Ivan Bunin. “The Story of a Journey” (1934–1935) is the second novel by Gaito Gazdanov, which combines themes of love, loneliness, and freedom, and in its deliberate incompleteness and fluidity of the plot, as well as attention to detail, reflects the main features of the author's worldview, a desire to express in words the endless movement of life in all the thrilling fullness of its sensual charm, its music, and its poetry. The edition also includes early stories by Gaito Gazdanov, among which are works such as “Hawaiian Guitars,” “Water Prison,” “Stories About Free Time,” and others.