Andrei Platonov, the most mysterious and unconventional Russian writer of the 20th century, passed almost unnoticed past the brilliant literary mirrors of his era. Yet in no other writer's fate did the national life of Russia manifest itself so acutely, and in no one else's work did the tragedy of a people orphaned by revolution express itself so deeply and fully. The novels, novellas, stories, articles, and plays of Andrei Platonov, most of which were published many years after his death, became an artistically weighty testimony and heartfelt reflection on what happened to the Russian person during the great and terrible decades of the past century. The fate and personality of Platonov were never confined to literature alone and are far less known to the general reader than his work. Yet the circumstances of his life allow much to be seen and understood in the complex Platonov books. Alexei Varlamov, a well-known prose writer and literary historian, presents to readers a biography of Andrei Platonov, created on the basis of a significant number of archival documents and texts, including some very recently discovered, tracing the creative path and recreating the personal and everyday traits of his subject, who, in the words of Viktor Nekrasov, "in life was not a writer, but in his literary work always remained a human being".