Gaito Gasdanow

Gaito Gazdanov (1903–1971) was a Russian writer and journalist and one of the major authors of the Russian émigré literary tradition. Born in Saint Petersburg, he volunteered for the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After its defeat, he reached Paris in 1923, where he initially worked, among other jobs, at the Renault factories and as a taxi driver, while beginning to publish literary and journalistic texts. His debut novel, *An Evening with Claire*, appeared in 1930. Gazdanov left nine novels, one of them unfinished, and more than fifty short stories. Because of the existentialist character of his work, he was repeatedly called the “Russian Camus.”