Kompromiss [Compromise]

Sergey Dovlatov was born in evacuation and died in exile. As a writer, he was formed in Leningrad, but success came to him in America, where he lived since 1979. His artistic thought with a visible paradox, justified by life experience, is simple and noble: to tell how people live strangely, sometimes sadly laughing, then sadly grieving. There are no righteous people in his books, because there are no villains in them either. The writer knows: both heaven and hell are within ourselves. Dovlatov believed in the 'smile of reason.' At the end of the second millennium, this worthy, reserved position brought to Sergei Dovlatov widespread fame. Alas, he died just at the moment when fame arrived. At home for many years now Dovlatov is one of the most consistently readable authors. His prose is staged, screened, studied in schools and universities, translated into major European and Japanese languages. Sergey Dovlatov said that he would like to be like Chekhov.