Records and Notes: A Collection

This edition includes selected autobiographical works by one of the most penetrating and tragic classics of Russian literature, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870–1953). It contains notes and excerpts from notebooks, the "Odessa Diary," describing events of the autumn of 1905, a chronicle of the Nobel days, and the text of a speech delivered by the writer upon receiving the most prestigious literary award, as well as the essay "How I Write," which reveals the secrets of his literary mastery. The book begins with the author's story about the Bunin family and his memories of childhood and youth, clarifying the life path choices of the future Nobel laureate. Covering the years spent by Bunin in Russia and his time in emigration, the collected materials represent a peculiar continuation of his artistic prose and simultaneously create a remarkably authentic perception of the poet's integral worldview, conveying to us a certain continuous, united "delight and horror of existence," filled with thoughts about the ongoing and inexorably passing life.