The Inconsolable Lucky One. From Notebooks

Venedikt Erofeev entered the history of literature as the author of the cult underground poem "Moscow — Petushki," which has been translated into more than thirty languages. It might seem that Erofeev's creative legacy is not very extensive: "Notes of... a Psychopath," "Walpurgis Night," an essay on Rozanov, and a few other works of small prose. However, a significant part of the writer's legacy consists of diaries that he kept since the late 1950s: over 30 notebooks and pads have survived, where biographical entries are interspersed with occasional notes, quotes from books, songs and conversations, anecdotes, puns, his own and others' sayings, etc., essentially becoming a creative laboratory. For Erofeev's admirers, this is truly invaluable material. The current edition presents excerpts from diaries of different years, including previously unpublished entries from the 1980s.