Mikhail Zoshchenko. The Homeless Genius

Mikhail Zoshchenko - a refined beauty, dandy, brilliant officer, hero of World War I; his stories were read with fascination by a little-known watercolorist with an absolutely forgettable name - Adolf Hitler. By the way, wasn't the actress Olga Chekhova translating Mikhail Mikhailovich's texts into German? Of course, he was fiercely hated by the literary generals of the USSR. But despite all of this, he lived the life of an absolutely happy person, which remains a complete mystery to us, one that we will attempt to unravel in this book. The book by Valery Georgievich Popov - a famous writer and screenwriter, laureate of literary awards - differs from traditional biographies of Zoshchenko with a different (worthy and joyful) perspective on the undoubtedly dramatic fate of the writer. People who loved Mikhail Zoshchenko, who lived near him, were sad: how they broke him, what they turned him into, not even burying him as they should have! But Zoshchenko did not disappear! Very soon, in the late fifties, we, young people, former schoolchildren, received Zoshchenko as cheerful and young, we laughed while reading him, and knew nothing of his sad end! In fact, this is how I started the book - with the delight of a new generation who discovered Zoshchenko. Just as the old order was weakening, Zoshchenko's caustic, slightly absurdist irony resonated in our hearts... (Valery Popov)