The new book by Andrei Volos, winner of the Russian State Prize for Literature, is an alphabetical Catalog. Or as the author himself calls it, “Alphabet. Book of Correspondences." Similar catalogs of human life were once created by Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and Milorad Pavic. You can read them from any chapter and get a new novel every time. Just as only 33 letters of the alphabet teach a child to read an infinite number of books and explore the world, so ALFA-VITA, “life from the first letter,” limited by the number of stories, teaches an adult the limitlessness of experience and choice. The author acts as a demiurge, inviting the reader to play and create an “interactive” mosaic of life.