Double Surname

"My novella ‘Double Surname’ was written by me in a small garden plot. It came out in one go. That’s how it happens when life itself provides an extraordinary story. While working on it, I realized how hard it is to write about an adult, defenseless, yet at the same time cruel human soul. Something in this novella was such that the editorial board of the magazine ‘Youth,’ after reading it, rejected it. I think that speaks to the quality and amount of pain embedded in it—like dynamite. But years passed… The novella became popular, reprinted many times, adapted for film. And it’s so strange for me to leaf through its pages, rereading an old text, looking at the faces and feelings of the characters—I don’t recognize much anymore. Yes, what’s there… I don’t recognize myself on these pages, because it was so long ago—so it was yesterday." Dina Rubina