There are not many memories left about Andrei Platonov (1899-1951), one of the most mysterious and original writers of the XNUMXth century. He was a very closed person, very closed, and the tragic circumstances of his difficult life did not dispose to openness.
There are not many memories left about Andrei Platonov (1899-1951), one of the most mysterious and original writers of the XNUMXth century. He was a very closed person, very closed, and the tragic circumstances of his difficult life — endless persecution and constant rejection by literary circles and authorities (Stalin’s review: «a talented writer, but a bastard», «gibberish language»), the arrest of a teenager son , then the conclusion and early death of the boy did not dispose to openness. The more valuable this is the most complete collection of letters to date, equipped with unique photographs. Letters to his beloved and only wife, to his son, work letters (for some time Andrey Platonov served as a land reclamation engineer and built power plants), letters to various editions and to those in power, letters from the hospital to his little daughter with touching drawings and signatures (“ your dad is crying in two glasses”)… Through the prism of the private life of the author of the famous “Pit” and “Chevengur”, a voluminous, documentary portrait of the country and era, incomprehensible, great, contradictory and terrible, emerges.
AST, 686 p.