A Bright Personality

The satirical novellas by the virtuoso wordmasters Ilf and Petrov—“1001 Days, or The New Scheherazade”—are based on genuine events of the 1920s: horrifyingly absurd public relations, an overwhelming bureaucracy, and an unsettled, chaotic everyday life.

This book also includes witty and brilliant stories and novellas—“The Bright Person,” “Extraordinary Stories from the Life of the Town of Kolokolamsk,” as well as vaudevilles, scripts, and titles for the film “The Holiday of St. Jorgen.” Special interest are the “Notebooks” by I. Ilf, published in the book, and E. Petrov’s memoirs about him.