Evgeny Schwartz

Although whole generations of readers and viewers grew up on the fairy tales of Evgeny Schwartz, the personality of their author remained in the shadows for a long time. His biography, incorporating many events of the 20th century, has only... recently become the subject of study, and writer Mikhail Kunin has made a new attempt to illuminate its little-known details and "white spots," while revealing the circumstances of the creation of such masterpieces as "The Shadow," "The Snow Queen," "The Dragon," and "An Ordinary Miracle."

What he once wrote about another great storyteller, Hans Christian Andersen, completely applies to the hero of this book: "In response to persecution and abuse, he created an amazing, transparent, kind fairy tale world... His tales did not resemble those purely conventional, excessively magical ones, where even a miracle is not a miracle because anything can happen. His fairy tale world was inextricably linked to real life, to his time, people, and country."