Vasily Aksyonov

There was a time I was deeply into late-cold war Russian literature (I have a box of books--Alexander Bitov, Yuri Trifonov, Fasil Iskander, Andrei Voznesensky et al--in my basement to show for it). I owe this interest to Vasily Aksyonov, who died yesterday.

As dramatized in his book, In Search of Melancholy Baby, Aksyonov shamed my class of aspiring writers at JHU into being more interested in literature beyond our borders. Each class he introduced us to one of his friends--he had surveyed them about the creative process in preparation for the class. [I got name-checked in his book for my paper on Iskander, which was super cool.]


My favorite moment in the class, though, was the day he brought in a scratchy old record by Vladimir Vysotsky, which we listened to on an ancient AV cart turntable, drinking champagne, dreaming of being part of a real literary scene.