Summary
Juz Aleškovski: Nikolai Nikolaevich
Josif Efimovič Aleškovski, writer, poet and screenwriter, was born into a family of Jewish-Russian origin. He lived in Moscow. He spent three years in prison for breaching discipline in the navy. He was released after Stalin's death. He wrote songs that he sang himself (some became extremely popular in the USSR). He could not publish anything, so, like Dovlatov, with whom he was a great friend, he emigrated in 1979 and since then lived in America with his family.
Yuz Aleshkovskii wrote several books that made him famous, among them "The Kangaroo" (1981) and "Nikolay Nikolayevich" (1980), in which he mocks Soviet society and pseudo-scientific biological experiments in the USSR (a famous such book is "Heart of a Dog" by Mikhail Bulgakov).
Aleshkovsky became extremely popular in Russia when his works finally began to be published, because he writes in direct language, witty, cheeky and uncompromising.
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