Ella Vladimirovna Vengerova is a well-known translator from German and a laureate of the V. A. Zhukovsky Prize. Suffice it to say that the famous novel “Perfume” by Patrick Süskind, in Vengerova’s translation, has been reprinted dozens of times. Her “Memoirlets” are recollections of childhood, school and university years, her work at the Library of Foreign Literature, at the Research Institute of Culture, in the publishing house “Iskusstvo,” and at RSUH. But Vengerova’s book is not an ordinary family saga against the backdrop of history (as is often the case). Instead, it is a sincere, witty conversation with the reader— including about her creative work translating major German writers such as Peter Hacks, Heiner Müller, Georg Büchner, Erich Maria Remarque, and many others. We are offered an amazing life— not only a private one, but one unfolding alongside Russia’s history of the 20th and 21st centuries.