The Book of Genesis

"We did not deflect a single blow from ourselves..." Sergey Alexandrovich Snegov (1910-1994), a renowned science fiction writer, could rightfully attribute these Akhmatova lines to himself. His "Book of Genesis" is an invaluable, firsthand testimony of a person who lived in an era of great change. The story of a boy, an Odessa street kid, gifted and audacious, unfolds against the backdrop of the upheavals of the revolution, the early difficult years of the Soviet Union, and the terror of the thirties. Snegov managed to recreate in detail the world of a child, a teenager - willful, dependent on praise, seeking adventure, suffering, and at times cruel. Gradually, the hero of the memories matures, and now a promising young scientist gives lectures at the university. However, being extraordinary is dangerous in a land where total equality is enforced by force. And thus, arrest in 1936 seems almost inevitable...