SOURCE: Introduction to Fro and Other Stories, by Andrei Platonov, Progress Publishers, 1972, pp. 5–20.

In the following introduction to Fro and Other Stories, Dorofeyev finds in many of Platonov's stories a unique and sensitive literary voice.

Platonov began writing in his teens, as a working lad—the inevitable poetry—and soon after the October Revolution began to appear in the press with poems and articles, and later short stories. In 1922 he had a verse collection, Blue Depths, published and intended publishing a book of short stories, which for some reason never materialised. His first collection of short stories, Yepifan Locks appeared in 1927, when he had already left his work as an engineer and embarked on his literary career, as prose writer, critic and dramatist. During the war he served as a war correspondent at the front almost without interruption. Thus Andrei Platonov went through life, a modest person, a...