“Evgeny Sokolov” (1980) is the only prose experience of Serge Gainsbourg (1928–1991), a French poet, composer, actor and director. In this fairy tale-parable, which tells the story of a lonely artist with Russian roots who managed to turn his physiological illness into a virtue, critics saw a satire on secular Paris and the self-irony with which Gainsbourg reacted to the fame that had befallen him. Translation: Natalia Chesnokova