Sergei Dovlatov is a writer whose life was told to him by himself during his lifetime. The stories of the lyrical hero in his books have become a true autobiography.
Leningrad
In the Leningrad theater family Donat Mechik in the first year of World War II, a son was born, who later took the name Dovlatov. The writer, who has become one of the most readable authors of recent decades, spent the first years of his life in Ufa. He served in the zone, worked in a large-circulation Leningrad newspaper, served as secretary and acted as a guide. In his free time he wrote stories. However, not one of Dovlatov’s books was published in Leningrad. As, however, in any other city of the USSR.
Sergey Dovlatov is an author whose prose, like life, is full of sadness and self-irony. A writer cannot refuse literary activity, since it is an integral part of his entire existence. But if a person living in the world of words, his beloved business does not provide the material base, he finds himself in a difficult situation. Out of this situation for Dovlatov was emigration.
New York
In this American city, the writer Dovlatov saw a completely different world. His biography includes a ten-year period of emigration. Over the years, he worked as a journalist in a prestigious publication, worked on the popular Russian-language radio, and it was then that he became famous. Great contemporaries responded very flatteringly about his work: Kurt Vonnegut, Irving How, Victor Nekrasov, Vladimir Voinovich. Dovlatov's twelve books were published abroad. Most of them were translated into English, German and other languages during the author’s lifetime.
Death overtook him in the ambulance. A few meters remained to the hospital. Carelessness was guilty of premature death, due to which there was no medical insurance at the right time, and fate. In the courtyard of the hospital for the poor died one of the most published authors today - Sergei Dovlatov. The writer Igor Efimov once said of him: "He died of undeserved self-dislike." In honor of the famous emigrant named one of the streets of New York.
"Zone"
The author of this story in one of the letters to the publisher once said that the events that formed its basis predetermined his writer's fate. A person becomes an artist when he has the ability to extract images and storylines from a dark abyss.
In his youth, one of Dovlatov's favorite writers was Ernest Hemingway. Obviously, under the influence of the American and world classics, a unique Dovlatov style was formed: realism, conciseness, lack of metaphors. However, as the author of the "Zone" himself said, he wanted to be similar only to Chekhov. Ordinary people and the situations in which they found themselves interested him like nothing else.
The story "The Zone", like other works, was first published in the United States. The book is a reflection of the criminal world, of which Dovlatov himself was an eyewitness. The writer presented the events in a peculiar chaotic style. As a warder, he saw the horrors and savagery of the world in which he found himself. But he was able to convey everything he saw on paper simply, without pathos. Happiness, pleasure, joy, anger, envy - all these categories are present in any society. And it does not matter who his members are - criminals or respectable citizens. In how simple and naive the joys and hopes of a person who finds himself behind bars in inhuman conditions can be, one can see a certain absurdity. But Sergey Donatovich, perhaps because of this, became a writer because he managed to consider in time the classic image of a “little man”.
"Reserve"
Sergey Dovlatov is a writer whose books were a continuation of his personal tragedy. Many authors who belong to his generation suffered a sad fate. They were not recognized at home, lived almost in poverty, and were persecuted by KGB officers. But the works of Dovlatov, contrary to all the blows of fate, are riddled with lyricism and self-irony. This is a hallmark of his prose.
A few years before departure, Dovlatov worked in the Pushkin Nature Reserve, in the Pskov Region. Books did not print it. There was nothing to support the family. But it was not the work of the guide that inspired the writer to create another autobiographical book, but the omnipresent "little man."
In an unusual perspective, the author of the "Reserve" describes his characters. A special place at first glance is occupied by the secondary hero Ivan Mikhalych: a person who drinks, but is noble, since he does not collect and donate bottles. The charming image of a country drunkard, the eccentric personality of a local brawler, an unpleasant but frank conversation in the office of a state security officer. And all this against the background of constant experiences caused by separation from the family. This is Dovlatov’s extraordinary gift: it’s important not to write, but to talk about, and the simpler the better.