Grisha Bruskin is one of the most renowned artists in the world who emerged from Soviet nonconformist art. Until 1986, his artworks were known to only a few, but in 1988, they became a sensation at the first Moscow Sotheby's auction, where they were sold for a record sum for that time. This episode is just a small part of the documentary-biographical tapestry included in the book, where Bruskin illustrates the paradoxical encounter between the individual and grand history.

His writings are characterized by wit and lightness, as well as attention to the grotesque details of everyday life on two continents and the small and large dramas of 20th-century individuals. They reflect both his personal biography and the fate of an entire generation: from growing up in a Jewish family in post-war USSR, facing early encounters with anti-Semitism and the absurdity of late Soviet life, to the world of nonconformist art and life in emigration.

Bruskin employs a defamiliarized, childlike perspective on the surrounding world, making his brief documentary sketches as expressive as the visual images of his artworks. For the first time, works that have placed Bruskin among the most significant writers of his generation are gathered under one cover. Visual materials from the author's personal archive reveal another dimension of these texts to the reader, helping to feel the breath of history within them.