Maurice Morua’s work is truly immense—200 books and more than a thousand articles. He wrote novels and novellas, critical articles and philosophical essays: literary memoirs and historical works. But above all, Morua is a master of the biographical genre.
In Morua’s creative legacy, biographies occupy a special place. Their success is evidenced by huge print runs and the many awards the writer has received. When critics and literary scholars talk about Morua’s biographical books, they use different concepts: художественная біографія (a fictional biography), біографічний роман (a biographical novel), an “embellished” biography— even a fictionalized biography. The writer categorically rejected the latter term, claiming that in his works he relied only on facts; the document becomes for him a necessary, organic part of the book.