This book is a series of portraits of writers from Soviet times: Mikhail Bulgakov and Mikhail Zoshchenko, Alexander Fadeev and Yuri Olesha, Sergey Mikhalkov and Alexander Tvardovsky, Valentin Kataev and Nikolai Erdman. The portraits are different: some are carefully painted in oil, others are quick graphic sketches, and some could be considered caricatures. And yet, it’s also a collective portrait whose features give an idea of a certain general phenomenon called the “Soviet writer”—or, “a Soviet intellectual.”
The book examines purely individual, personal destinies. And at the same time—it presents a destiny shared by many.