The Craft

In this book, Dovlatov talks about his writer’s fate.

The author himself defined the tasks for himself this way: “Chaotic, long, and unclear, I will try to set down my ‘creative’ biography. These will be the adventures of my manuscripts. Portraits of acquaintances. Documents…”

The narrative consists of two parts: the first was written in Leningrad in 1976; it tells about Dovlatov’s Soviet life—writing in the USSR, the untalented and the thinking people in the USSR, the system and dissenters in the USSR, writing and journalism in the USSR.

The second was completed in New York in 1984—it is about the American period of the writer’s life, when life changed radically: now it is possible to write about anything, but it turned out to be harder (technically and organizationally) to convey this to the reader—the other side.

“A sheet of paper—happiness and a curse! A sheet of paper—my punishment…”

It’s interesting to read right away the “Solo on the Underwood” that the author refers to. In “The Craft” he gives explanations.