SOURCE: A review of Putëm vzaimnoj perepiski, in World Literature Today, Vol. 54, No. 2, Spring, 1980, p. 297.

In the following review, Carey describes Voinovich's career and the themes behind Putëm vzaimnoj perepiski.

In 1932 Vladimir Voinovich was born in Dushanbe, capital of the Tadzhik Republic, to a Jewish mother and a journalist father of Serbian descent. After receiving a rudimentary formal education and working at various trades, he became one of the Soviet Union's most daring voices, author of the satires entitled The Ivankiad and The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (see WLT 52:4, pp. 544-50). Voinovich's plain language and uncompromising directness reveal Soviet reality in its grotesque, dehumanizing aspects. He depicts the life of the small man, the alienated, the victim of both fate and the system. His work is imbued with a sadness over wasted human potential that is relieved by laughter at the absurd...