{"id":30069,"date":"2012-04-19T12:45:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T16:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=30069"},"modified":"2012-04-19T11:56:06","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T15:56:06","slug":"to-do-list-a-celebration-of-dovlatov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/19\/to-do-list-a-celebration-of-dovlatov\/","title":{"rendered":"To Do List: A Celebration of Dovlatov"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/dolatov.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-30081\" title=\"dolatov\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/dolatov-300x287.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/dolatov-300x287.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/dolatov.jpg 496w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a>\u201cThe only Russian writer whose works will be read all the way through\u201d\u2014that\u2019s what Joseph Brodsky called Sergei Dovlatov.\u00a0This prophecy has proved true (at least, one work at a time) for some of us here at the <em>Review<\/em>.\u00a0To read Dovlatov is to love him, whether he\u2019s telling stories of his Armenian-Russo-Jewish family, rediscovering the 1960s in the contents of an old suitcase, or relating the misadventures of an alcoholic docent at a Pushkin museum. He writes short, he writes sad, he writes funny. Dovlatov was born in 1941 and grew up in Leningrad. Although he could not get published at home, his early creative work found an audience in the West after friends helped smuggle it out of the USSR. Facing a campaign of harassment by the KGB, the writer emigrated to Queens in 1978, where he wrote books, stories, and journalism. He died in 1990.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow there will be a celebration of Dovlatov\u2019s work at the Frants Gallery in Soho, with readings by Lara Vapnyar and Barry Yourgrau (whose essay on Dovlatov, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/25\/the-troubadour-of-honed-banality\/\">The Troubadour of Honed Banality<\/a>\u201d appeared on the Daily). The night will mark the opening of an exhibition of Dovlatov illustrations by Alexander Florensky. For details on the event, see the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frantsgallery.com\/site\/?p=303\">Frants Gallery Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe only Russian writer whose works will be read all the way through\u201d\u2014that\u2019s what Joseph Brodsky called Sergei Dovlatov.\u00a0This prophecy has proved true (at least, one work at a time) for some of us here at the Review.\u00a0To read Dovlatov is to love him, whether he\u2019s telling stories of his Armenian-Russo-Jewish family, rediscovering the 1960s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2559],"tags":[7173,35,2077,7174,5802],"class_list":["post-30069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulletin","tag-alexander-florensky","tag-art","tag-barry-yourgrau","tag-frants-gallery","tag-sergei-dovlatov"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>To Do List: A Celebration of Dovlatov by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 19, 2012 \u2013 \u201cThe only Russian writer whose works will be read all the way through\u201d\u2014that\u2019s what Joseph Brodsky called Sergei Dovlatov.\u00a0This prophecy has proved true\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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