And a Black Pirate Rag Flies Above Us…

A collection of historical, biographical essays on the leading Soviet and foreign personalities from 1950 to the present.

Georgy Pryakhin’s unique writing style combining actual events and facts with a creative license presents rich portraits of the characters. Pryakhin transforms the reader into a literary fly on the wall, overhearing conversations and stories that were never before overheard. Events and conversations that never took place… or did they? Among those highlighted in the chapters: Willy Brandt and Leonid Brezhnev, Stalin and his mother, Fidel Castro, Nikolay Rubtsov and Joseph Brodsky.

Pryakhin’s first story, “Boarding,” was published in the prestigious magazine, “Novy Mir,” with a foreword by Chingiz Aitmatov. He has authored several additional books that have been published around the world including in Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the USA, England, Ireland, Armenia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Japan.

Pryakhin was awarded the Alexander Grin All-Russian Literary Prize and the Valentin Kataev Prize. He is also an academician of the Academy of Russian Literature. Since March 2011, Pryakhin has been director of the “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura,” a leading publishing house in Moscow.

397 pages