A charming and unusual autobiography and an author’s homage to the men who shaped her writing career: ranging from a cheeky schoolboy, two authors, a screenplay writer, to Mikhail Gorbachev and a Swiss publisher.

Viktorija Tokarjewa, the grande dame of Russian literature, tells the story of her life – by way of the men who helped her to become a writer and allowed her talent to blossom. These men believed in her, infuriated her, loved her, revolutionised her country, challenged her.
And as a bonus track: a very personal essay about Viktorija Tokarjewa’s literary role model, Anton Chekhov.

While travelling through Italy, a children's book illustrator called Romanova falls in love with Leonid, an ill-adjusted artist whom she finds so fascinating and enigmatic that she nicknames him Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov woos her and takes every opportunity to be alone with her. But his reasons are not what Romanova thinks they are…Four stories about hopes and longings.

For Nadka, difficulties are only tough nuts that have to be cracked. There is no conflict from which Nadka does not emerge victorious. But even Nadka has a weakness: she falls in love with a married man, and a desperate tug-of-war begins. It is the first battle that threatens to get the better of her.

Ambitious Mara has two goals: power and money. Since there is no direct path to neither due to her lack of education, she has to achieve her goals indirectly through men. Madame Pompadour is her unequalled idol. But then she unexpectedly falls in love with a young musician who, however, only exploits her feelings. From then on she sells her own grandmother… Tokarjewa draws a psychologically sensitive and tragicomic picture of a modern Russian ›femme fatale‹.

»The show must go on« – even in the face of professional and personal setbacks. Stories about starlets, nine–day–wonders, would-be artists and true artists – and about love.

›Shall I say it or not?‹ is the fraught question which accompanies the life of a young woman like a leitmotif. Now a mature woman, she looks back on the many opportunities she lost through her indecision - and when a last opportunity arises she finally takes the plunge. ›I am, you are, he is‹ is the story of an unmarried mother whose whole life revolves around her son. One day, he brings a girl home. His mother does not take to the young woman and waits impatiently for the visitor to leave. Then her son tells her that she is here to stay - if she leaves, he will leave too since he married her a few days previously... ›Kirka and the officer‹ would, in the normal course of events, hardly have got to know each other since Kirka the painter would have been unlikely to have anything to do with such an ideologically minded old fossil who still believes in the uprightness of the communist party. But a postcard that went to the wrong address brings about a collision between two people with diametrically opposed philosophies.

How many great loves can one have in a lifetime? One, according to Irina – if you're lucky. Just as, after two children and a failed marriage, she expects nothing more from life, she meets Kjamal. He is Azerbaijani, young, handsome – and smells of strawberries, black currant leaves and fresh hay. Kjamal lives with Irina, but cannot marry her – after all, she is not of his religion. Years later, as civil war erupts in Azerbaijan and the hunt for Russians begins, Irina returns to Moscow, hoping to stay with her children. But they now have their own lives – tinged with dashed hopes, alcohol and bitterness. Irina battles on, as one illusion after another is destroyed. Until the day that Kjamal arrives in Moscow.

With enemies like that, who needs friends! Five short stories about tough women and meek men, about the battle for daily bread and life as a millionaire, about the loyalty of gentlemen and about hate as the flipside of love. A painter living with her little granddaughter Sasha in a country cottage has three enemies: Anka, the housekeeper, who cooks for the granddaughter but never has any food left over for the painter when she emerges, exhausted, from her studio; Tanka, her father's second wife, who is trying to thwart what little contact the father and daughter still have left; and Wanka, her neighbour, who took it on his own authority to move the garden fence. To the painter's disadvantage of course. These three people would make her life hell – if she did not have her art, her dog and her granddaughter to love. But when her enemies drop out of the picture one after another, the painter realises that something important has gone with them.

The young actress Nonna and her director Zarenkov were an attractive couple even if he was twenty years older than she was. It could have been a remake of Pygmalion. But »after all, Dr. Higgins did not have a mother-in-law.« A mother's love is something beautiful, but when a mother gets involved in the love life of her grown-up daughter, it becomes a problem. At the latest when her mother says after a secret meeting with the ex-wife of her future son-in-law: »Just what I was afraid of: He is a big mouth and a ladykiller«, things can become critical. And when mummy also manages to move in with the freshly married couple, love's terror is on the menu, because after all, a mother only wants the best for her child. Four stories about all kinds of love: motherly love, charitable love, erotic love, and romantic love.

Viktorija Tokarjewa tells stories of life at the country dacha and the struggle to survive in the city, about bohemians and rural poverty, about blows of fate and fortuitous turns, about the serenity of old age and the impetuosity of youth. And about how strange love can be. Is he a scoundrel, the screenwriter Stasik, who fathers a son with young Lara but can not do without his wife Lida? Is he a fool, 70-year-old Viktor Petrovich, who falls head over heels in love again? And is she a bitch, the doctor who tells a concerned mother that her little daughter has a brain tumour, knowing full well it is not true? Human beings are a mystery, and love no less of one – that has always been the subject of the great Russian storyteller Viktorija Tokarjewa. She brings poetic justice even to scoundrels, fools and bitches – just as to the other unhappy lovers, lenient keepers of secrets and dauntless women in these new short stories.

The main characters in this volume of stories are all hedonists or would at least like to master the art of living. Like Tamara whose husband, a famous sculptor, starts drinking again after ten years of abstinence. On a business trip to the Ukraine, Tamara meets young Jura who is so completely different from her husband. Should she start a new life with him?

Who says that true love only comes once in a lifetime? Someone must have. But they were wrong. Ada's grandparents had to keep their aristocratic origins a secret in the Soviet Union, but still managed to hold onto their principles, along with some of the family jewels. Ada's mother is a gifted singer at the Bolshoi Theatre. And Ada herself? Ada had no clearly defined talents, apart from the talent of pleasing people. Everyone liked her, without exception: young and old, clever and stupid, cats and dogs, military and bureaucrats. And Ada herself didn't discriminate; she just wanted to love and be loved, nothing more. The times change: Perestroika makes its entrance; the Soviet Union disintegrates, the era of Mafia-like capitalism dawns. But Ada is still Ada – even though the objects of her affection change. Whether a man is a kgb agent or a dissident, Ada always loves him for who he is beneath that. This is the story of a woman who never stops believing in happiness.

Vera is an actress: blonde, blue eyes, as slim as a young birch tree. She looks delicate, but she is tough.Tough enough to survive the Siege of Leningrad when hundreds of thousands of people starved to death. In the Moscow theatre she plays mainly supporting roles, simple Russian girls. And her wants are simple too: enough to eat, a warm corner and love. And she finds all of this when she meets Alexander, ten years her junior, and an aspiring film producer. It's true that he hadn't wanted her to give birth to their son, but even so, they are almost a real family. Until Lena comes into their life: a screenplay writer and actually anything but a femme fatale. Vera, Alexander, Lena – a love triangle. But at its centre: Vera.

Angela wants to be a singer. Angela wants to be discovered. A Moscow music producer tells her that she does not just need a good voice, but money too: for lyrics, composition and recording. But how do you get money when you’re just a simple girl from the provinces? »There are as many singers as there are grains of sand on the seaside. You’re just one of many.« Even though no music producer believes that Angela can make it in Moscow, make it she does. Because careers are made with the help of who you know. And given that Angela is a pretty young woman, it’s not hard for her to make contacts. The wealthy and married Nikolaj, for example. Doggedly determined and imperturbable, Angela pursues her dream – but once all the doors of opportunity are open to her, she realises that happiness looks completely different to how she imagined it.

Mesjazew does not fall in love with other women, for he loves his family and his real wife – music. But then vamp Ljulja intrudes into the idyll and gets the ball rolling until it becomes an avalanche. Three stories about love and other infamies.