Sergei Dovlatov (real name Sergei Dovlatov-Mechik) was born on 3 September 1941 in Ufa into a creative and multicultural family of a theatre director and an actress. In 1959 Dovlatov decided to follow in his parents' footsteps: choosing a humanitarian speciality, the young man entered Leningrad State University. Unfortunately, Sergei did not pay due attention to his studies, but became friends with such creative personalities as Joseph Brodsky, Eugene Rein and Sergei Wolf. Dovlatov was expelled from the university because of his academic failure, and for three years he went to serve in the army, where he guarded the penal colonies of the Komi Republic. After the army he entered his native university at the faculty of journalism, in parallel worked in the student samizdat "For personnel shipyards", where he printed stories. After the institute he continued to work in his speciality, and had time to be a literary secretary. Later he lived in Estonia for three years, where he combined work as a stoker and freelance journalist. Returning from Estonia, worked as a tour guide, in the mid-seventies returned to Leningrad, where he again got a job in his speciality. Soon Dovlatov was forced to emigrate to the United States because of ideological persecution by the Soviet authorities. In the new place, he began editing the newspaper The New American, which quickly became famous among Russian-speaking emigrants.

Sergei Dovlatov: creativity

Sergei wrote his first stories while still serving in the army. Later, already in Estonia, he also wrote stories about his personal experience of working as a journalist - they are then included in the collection "Compromise". It is noteworthy that his first book "Five Corners", which was about to be published by a local publishing house, was confiscated and destroyed at the behest of the KGB. Later, since 1975, Dovlatov repeatedly tried to publish his works, but was refused for ideological reasons. In the USSR he managed to publish only a novella and a short story, not counting ten reviews in two magazines. The only way for Sergei to publish his own works was samizdat and émigré magazines. In 1976 Dovlatov was expelled from the Union of Journalists, and two years later he left for America, unable to withstand the constant pressure.

In the new place he began to publish actively, as a result of which he became a popular writer. During the 12 years spent in America, Sergei published a book a year. Moreover, the corrected versions of his early works, which he forbade to republish in the USSR, were published there. In his homeland, the writer was known and remembered for the books he had already published and his broadcast on Radio Liberty.

Despite the writer's emigration, his books became famous in Soviet Russia as well. The readers name the following works as their favourites:

"Suitcase"

"Compromise"

"Inostranka"

Dovlatov died in the late summer of 1990 in New York. The cause was heart failure and prolonged alcoholism of the writer, with which he fought all his life. Posthumously, his works were staged in domestic theatres, screened, and included in the list of 100 must-read books recommended by the Ministry of Education.

Dovlatov is considered one of the most widely read and three of the most popular Russian-language writers abroad.