Words in Snow: A Book about Russian Writers

The author's new book is dedicated to a special theme—the world of Russian prose. How, from what, and most importantly, why does it enter our hectic world?

The book contains 19 chapters, each dedicated to one of the celebrated or forgotten writers. Here are the portraits of the famous Gogol, Turgenev, Olesha, Trifonov, and the somewhat forgotten Savin, as well as the little-known Serge. Such different writers, such different eras... As the author admits in the preface, 'the meaning of this book is not a general overview, but a selection from the heart, not a sequence of history, but the immediacy of friendship and love'.

Such bias cannot be ignored, cannot be absorbed. The images of the writers are born not only from the testimonies of their contemporaries but also from their own quotes. Phrases uttered by literary characters and autobiographical confessions become vivid characteristics of the authors.

What unites them? A passionate love for words, a painful need for creativity. All of them, regardless of time and circumstances, are 'Russian literature in its movement and striving, in its passion and pain, in its desire to understand the world'.

'Russian prose is alive, and its creators are alive in that obvious and delicate world that coexists with ours.'