Go without a heartlessness. Between literature and life

Evgeny Vodolazkin is the author of the novels “Lavr”, “Aviator”, “Solovyov and Larionov”, “Brisben”, the winner of the Prize “Big Book”, “Yasnaya Polyana” and “Book of the Year”. His books are translated into many languages.

In the new book “Supporting” the author himself comes to the fore. “Little Personal Paradise”, family history, relatives of Petersburg and Kyiv, Pushkin’s house and science, transition from a philologist - a medievist to the writer, for the first time told the details of the creation of “Lavra”, “Aviator”, “Brisben”...

“The Calling of the Writer” - to be a saucer in a spiritual session: to spin in the center of the table and make texts from letters.

writing is, in fact, a naming. Assigning the words that was worried, but remained nameless - whether it was the salty fragility of the skin after the beach or ventilation (frosty haze in the window) of the hospital ward. The first writer was Adam to whom the Lord gave the right to name the animals surrounding him. Giving animals the names, Adam transferred them from a single to the common - and made everyone's property.

The writer's business is to catch the music of spheres and transfer it into notes. To be, if you like, “the best acyn of the steppe”: to sing about what he sees. Which, I emphasize, see everyone living there. And he sings - only he, because he is able to turn the steppe into a text. ”

Evgeny Vodolazkin.