The Librarian

Начало книги

THE WRITER Dmitry Alexandrovich Gromov (1910–81) lived out his days in total obscurity. His books sank without trace in a bottomless abyss of recycled paper, and when political catastrophes finally demolished his Soviet Homeland, it seemed that there was no one at all left to remember the writer Gromov.

Not many people had read him. Of course, there were the Soviet editors who assessed the political loyalty of texts, followed by the critics. But it was hardly likely that anyone had ever pricked up their ears in startled interest at the titles The Proletarian Way (1951), Fly On, Happiness! (1954), Narva (1965), By Labour’s Roads (1968), The Silver Channel (1972) and The Quiet Grass (1977).

Gromov’s life story progressed step by step in parallel with the development of his Socialist Motherland. He was educated at a Soviet seven-year school and a teacher-training college, and subsequently worked as the executive editor of a factory’s in-house newspaper. The purges and repressions passed Gromov by and he calmly carried on as he was until June 1941, when he was drafted into the army and found himself on the front line as a war correspondent. In the winter of 1943 Gromov suffered frostbite in his hands—they managed to save the left one, but his right hand was amputated. After the victory was won, Gromov took his family from Tashkent, the city to which they had been evacuated, to the Donbas and stayed there, working in the editorial office of a municipal newspaper until he retired.

Читать дальше →