by Abram Tertz
Paul Daneman as the novelist Peter Woodthorpe as the poet
The story translated from the Russian and dramatised for radio by NICHOLAS BETHELL
This ' fantastic-realistic ' story, one of the five in The Icicle, figured in the trial of its author, Andrey Sinyavsky , sentenced to corrective Jabour for allowing his allegedly anti-Soviet writings to be pseudonymously published abroad. It was termed autobiographical by the sole defence witness who tried to use it in mitigating evidence : Sinyavsky once said to me that it is impossible to draw the line between a writer and a graphomaniac. Evidently his ...' At that point the witness was silenced by the judge.
Produced by H. B. FORTUIN
Second broadcast