Trepanation of the Skull

Moscow, early 1990s. The main character suffers from unbearable headaches, and soon doctors find a benign tumor. Awaiting surgery, life goes on, and in this life, there is room for vernissages and poetry evenings, trips to the dacha, drinking bouts with friends, and, of course, painful self-reflection and fear of the future. Like Dovlatov, the hero of Gandlevsky is autobiographical, with real people appearing here and there - friends and colleagues of the author: Timur Kibirov, Lev Rubinstein, Alexander Soprovskiy, Semyon Faibisovich, Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov, and many others. The narrative of 'here and now' is occasionally interspersed with memories of 'uncensored' youth, while vivid everyday details make this prose particularly memorable. 'NRZB' is a novel about a poet-studio worker Lev Krivorotov (the surname in this case is telling); in his youth, he aimed for the trajectory 'creativity, love, masterpieces, a period of persecution, gray hair, a tailcoat, Stockholm, acceptance speech', but what was planned, alas, did not come true. Twenty years later, Krivorotov has pushed creativity to the background and is engaged in the legacy of Viktor Chigrashov, a poet whom contemporaries once said: 'We will only be remembered for having breathed the same air with him.' The bitterness of unfulfilled hopes, jealousy, and repressed resentment are the lifeblood of Krivorotov, but even in this stagnant water, there will be no shortage of surprises…

Sergey Gandlevsky is a poet, prose writer, and essayist. He graduated from the philological faculty of Moscow State University. He worked as a school teacher, tour guide, stagehand, and night watchman; currently, he is the editor of the magazine 'Foreign Literature.' He has been writing poetry since the age of eighteen and was a participant in the poetic association 'Moscow Time.' He is a laureate of many literary awards, including the 'Small Booker', 'Anti-Booker', 'Northern Palm', the Apollo Grigorieva Prize, 'Moscow Score', and 'Poet'.