The most prominent representative of the experimental trend in American prose of the 20th century, a daring innovator, whose best works were banned in his homeland for a long time, Henry Miller became famous not only for his confessional-autobiographical novels, but also for his memoir-journalistic essays, in which he continues to talk about many of his friends and acquaintances, without whom it is impossible to imagine contemporary art and literature. We present to your attention one of the collections of his documentary stories and artistic essays, “Freeze Like a Hummingbird,” translated into Russian for the first time. The book also includes two stories presented in a new edition: “A Smile at the Foot of a Rope Ladder,” written by order of the famous artist Fernand Léger and intended to accompany a collection of his works on the theme of the circus, and “Insomnia, or the Devil on the Loose,” a love story of an already elderly man. Miller to his last wife, a Japanese film actress and jazz singer.