Russian writers, poet and journalist. The author of biographies of Boris Pasternak, Bulat Okujava and Vladimir Mayakovski. He has published several novels, collections of essays and poetry. The biography of Boris Pasternak was published in 2005 to a great public and critical acclaim. The book was awarded with 2 main literary prizes of the country: National Best-Seller of 2006 and “The Great Book”. Bykov is the winner of Strugatsky International Award (triple, in 2004, 2007, 2013).
Bykov has been active as a journalist since 1985, cooperated with the newspaper Sobesednik, magazine Ogoniok, radio Echo Moskvi, TV company 5th Channel and Dozhd. He is the editor-in-chief of weekly literary magazine “What to Read”. In collaboration with Mikhail Efremov he runs the TV project “Citizen Poet”, a sarcastic political show, where Bykov creates satirical versions of famous Russian poems.
Bykov is teaching at several universities of Moscow. Regularly delivers public lectures on literature.
On the narrative function of the detail
The two of you sharing some nuts in a dimly lit
cinema, chucking their husks into your left pocket.
Oh what a detail! Chekhov neglected it,
busy with needy patients and garden rocket.
You stepped out of the cinema hall and into the night.
Even though at the bus stop you noticed a rubbish bin,
you forgot to empty your pocket: the husks were light
just as love is blind and a lover’s memory thin.
After many years, you - the devil knows, to what end -
went no matter where, arrayed in the same old jacket.
In the search of a coin for the bus fare back home, your hand
grabbed a fistful of nutshells deep in your worn-out pocket.
When you find yourself standing, painfully straight and stiff,
mutely swallowing tears, at a busy junction,
will you not see the irony here - you who once could laugh
about anything, even the detail’s narrative function?
translated by Alexandra Berlina