Mikhail Zoshchenko. A Homeless Genius

15 hrs. 57 min.

Language Russian

Author Valery Popov

Narrator Kirill Petrov

Description

Valery Popov, a well-known Petersburg prose writer, presents to readers his new book in the “ZhZL” series. This time he has ventured into a topic that is difficult even now and still sharply debated: the fate and work of Mikhail Zoshchenko (1894–1958). Unlike earlier biographies of the famous satirist, which were usually focused on his dramas, V. Popov shows us a bold, successful, secular man who took delight in many joys of life and bore his dramas with dignity. “Writers are not made by good fortune,” Zoshchenko claimed. And this truly philosophical statement can be considered the main idea of the book. The satirist’s gift is dangerous in itself—and Zoshchenko understood this well, just as the author of his biography understands it, presenting his hero both in the glory of fame and in the price he paid for it.