Rudyard Kipling's literary reputation is as controversial as his personality. On the one hand, he is the “bard of British imperialism,” a glorifier of wars and colonial conquests; on the other, he is the author of wonderful poems, short stories, and fairy tales, the first English Nobel Prize laureate. Many of his works are dedicated to India, where the writer spent his childhood and youth, opening this huge, diverse country to the rest of the world for the first time. His heroes - the wolf's adopted son Mowgli and the young scout Kim, the curious Baby Elephant and the brave mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - are still loved by readers and viewers in different countries, although Kipling himself, with his hopelessly outdated political views, was pushed to the margins of literary life during his lifetime . The author of Russia's first biography of Kipling, the famous translator Alexander Livergant, examines the life and creative path of the author of The Jungle Book and White's Burden, paying special attention to the development of his gift as a writer.