Zoo, or Letters Not About Love

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893–1984) — writer, literary scholar, critic, screenwriter, "leader of the formalists" and "main adjuster of OPOYAZ". This edition includes three works by Viktor Shklovsky, as well as a unique personal document "Letters to My Grandson". The collection opens with a memoir novel written in the twenties and dedicated to Elza Triol (“Zoo, or Letters Not About Love”). “Sentimental Journey” is autobiographical prose born in emigration and published in 1923 in Berlin. There is a difference of several years between the hero and the author; however, the former is still a very young and somewhat naive person, ready to risk himself for his homeland and revolution, while the latter has already become disillusioned with past ideals. “Once upon a time” is a book that the author worked on throughout his long literary life. In it, he tells about Maxim Gorky, Vsevolod Ivanov, Sergei Eisenstein, and other contemporaries. A conversation with Viktor Borisovich by writer and literary scholar Alexander Chudakov opens the book. “His vision of people, things, and events will be studied for a long time to come because new perspectives are rare. The structure of Shklovsky's prose will be studied just like the structure of the prose of Rozanov and Andrei Bely” (Alexander Chudakov).