An Open Book

Can human life be contained within the pages of a single book? In the famous novel by Veniamin Kaverin, the author of the beloved «The Two Captains», the story of a young talented scientist-microbiologist Tatiana Vlasenkova is told. The feeling of first love, the bitterness of first betrayal, dreams of personal happiness intertwine into a single stream of life, alongside the details of everyday and professional concerns. The author worked on «An Open Book» for about ten years. The magazine publication of the first part (1948) provoked a storm of official criticism — so accurately did Kaverin depict the conditions under which scientific life took place during the Soviet era: risk and self-sacrifice on one hand, and pressure from party ideology on the other. The writer did not abandon his moral principles during the most difficult times, and this largely determined the success of his works.