The traveller & his road

Picasso and Marc Chagall illustrated his works, Respighi set his poems to music, Lawrence Durrell called him "a wild and roguish literary man of almost mythological quality." Armenian literary scholars and critics are unanimous in regarding him as a unique phenomenon in modern Armenian literature. Gostan Zarian (1885-1969) was born in the Caucasus, educated in Paris, Brussels, and Venice, and was a poet, editor, journalist, teacher, and bon vivant in nearly all the population centers of Europe, the Middle East, the United States, and the Soviet Union. He produced works of an astonishing variety in French, Russian, Italian, and Armenian. Here, for the first time, the English reader is given an opportunity to appreciate a substantial selection from one of the finest works by this giant in modern literature. In addition to an informative introduction, the translator provides copious notes - historical, literary, stylistic - enabling readers to follow the text without difficulty, even if they know little or nothing about Armenian history and culture.