SOURCE: An interview, translated by David Marks, in Soviet Literature, No. 10, 1975, pp. 174-82.

The following interview was conducted in East Germany in 1972 and later published in Sinn und Form and Literaturnaya Rossia. Below, Leonov discusses his writing process and the themes that interest him.

[Opitz]: Leonid Maximovich, we should like to talk to you about your writing. First of all, may we ask you about the way your novels are conceived. What inspires you to write: experiences or images, ideas or observations?

[Leonov]: I must say that I do not think in political or philosophical categories. I lived in the times I described, I saw a lot including those people who were to fall victim to the crucible of change, who could not withstand its searing heat.

This is probably how all creation is conceived, not only in the case of writers. With Copernicus and Galileo, was it...