An anthology of memoirs about the childhood of prominent people, in which an attempt is made to feel like a child again and at the same time comprehend the experience of childhood, to see in it what determined adult life.
An anthology of memoirs about the childhood of prominent people, in which an attempt is made to feel like a child again and at the same time comprehend the experience of childhood, to see in it what determined adult life. This experience is very different: cruel, sad, humiliating — and dizzyingly bright, piercing, anticipating everything that will be beautiful in life, and itself inexpressibly beautiful. The compiler Sergei Lebedev, who in his headings and small introductory remarks outlined the leitmotif of each of the 23 stories about childhood, creates before our eyes that “map” of a person’s spiritual development that reflects the reality of inner life. Nikolai Berdyaev, Sofya Kovalevskaya, Mikhail Gasparov, Stanislav Lem, George Orwell, Herman Hesse, Ingmar Bergman… Their grievances, dreams, misunderstanding, self-awareness, melancholy, jubilation, bewilderment, loneliness, rebellion, a sense of gift, rapture, a direct sense of life… It’s good that there are people who can tell about this for all of us!
First of September, 272 p.