Gaito Gazdanov in Paris in the 1920s.

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Viviane Hamy (publishers):
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Gaito Gazdanov's Paris / 45

Between 1923 and 1928 Gazdanov worked as a stevedore, as an automotive toolmaker in a Citroën plant and as a locomotive washer. In 1925-26 he was unemployed and lived miserably as a tramp on the streets of Paris.

In 1926 his stories began appearing in various Russian emigre journals and he began attending classes at the Sorbonne.

In 1928 he became a Paris taxi driver, a job he worked at steadily until 1952, apart from stints teaching French and Russian. During this time he wrote seven of his nine novels as well as short stories and literary criticism.