Despite — or probably because of — his uniqueness, Pavlov has become one of Russia’s best-known authors, rooting himself in the satirical tradition of Gogol and Platonov. Bluntly dismissing the idea of a literary renaissance, Pavlov says, “I do not like modern Russian literature … it’s all a lie. All I see is a parody. Miserable, treacherous, despicable … I am alone. Those close to me are all gone. I’m a man from a completely different era. My renaissance, to call it that, was Andrei Tarkovsky and Dürer, Van Gogh, and Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe and Faulkner: a renaissance whose ideal was not beauty as such, but faith in man.”
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