Andrei Bitov: The Mirage of the Plot

The literary fame of Andrei Georgievich Bitov (1937–2018) was never loud, but it is hard to imagine modern Russian literature without his novels "Pushkin House," "The Man in the Landscape," and "The Flying Monk." Bitov left us quite recently, and this book is, in essence, his first biography. Moreover, it is unusual – its author, prose writer and documentary filmmaker Maxim Gureyev, constructs his narrative like a script for an unfilmed movie by Bitov, weaving in quotes from the writer's works, memories of him, and voices of his contemporaries, painting a vivid and multifaceted portrait of a master of words remembered by many.