Nagibin, Iurii Markovich [Kirillovich] (1920 - 1994)	Rasskazy sinego liagushonka., M., Privately printed 1991., 336 p. publisher´s binding, FINE, FIRST EDITION	€30,00

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8vo, attractive front cover design by unknown book designer. One of the very first books by a prominent Soviet author published privately and on his own expense during first years of perestroika. The book was printed at Moscow´s MP (maloe predpriiatie) 'Borges', one of the earliest and largest private presses in the run of 200 000 copies and was sold out the very same year. Memoirs about Alexander Galich, 'O Galiche-chto pomnitsia, are included in this collection of novels and novellas. Iurii Markovich (Kirillovich) Nagibin was a successful Soviet writer, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known for his screenplays, but he also has written several novels and novellas, and many short stories. He is known to a new generation of Russian readers for his novel The Red Tent that he later adapted for the screenplay for the film of the same name. The novel was based on the history of Umberto Nobile's expedition to the North Pole. Nagibin was nicknamed by some of his colleagues 'Casanova' or 'Soviet Casanova'. The term was coined already in 1960´s when some of his love affairs turned into greater scandals. He was officially married six times and himself claimed to have hundreds of love affairs. During perestroika he wrote and published one of the best erotic stories where the main character was Joseph Stalin and Bolshoy´s Theatre dancer. Nagibin's mother was pregnant with him when his father was executed as a counter-revolutionary before he was born. He was raised by a Jewish stepfather from infancy, and was unaware of that he had a different father, so he always assumed he was Jewish himself. Mark Leventhal, his stepfather was arrested in turn himself and exiled to Northern Russia in 1927. Nagibin found out late in life that he was not in fact Jewish, but he consciously retained ethnic Jewish identity, having suffered many anti-Semitic incidents in the course of his life. See: http://www.vilavi.ru/sud/redtent/redtent1.shtml, Yuri Nagibin, 'Diaries' 1952