About the book: 2011 / Yuri Galperin, one of the most interesting Russian prose writers of the second half of the 20th century, is almost unknown in Russia. His three main works - “Playing the Blues”, “Bridge over Lethe” and “Russian Version” - could not be published in Soviet Russia. They became available to the general reader in their homeland only in the mid-nineties, but were drowned in the flow of “returned literature.” This is, of course, unfair. According to Andrei Bitov, “Halperin gravitates toward that cultural branch that was grafted onto the trunk of Russian literature by Nabokov.” Indeed, Halperin's ironic, stylish, intelligent prose is comparable in purity and skill to Nabokov's; however, with one difference: Halperin’s prose is warmer and more humane, it is addressed primarily to the living and immediate emotions of the reader.