Boris Vian ─ French writer, and in general, a man of diverse talents, the author of a number of modernist shocking works, who nevertheless became a classic of French literature after his death, predicting the rebellion of nonconformist works of the 60s of the 20th century. Novels that Vian himself considered the main in his work, no one classifies it as science fiction. Although they are literally overwhelmed with fantastic situations and characters. Just remember the rabbit machines that produce tablets for pharmacies, gun barrels grown from seeds, or people with bird heads from the novel “Foam of Days.” However, neither during the writer’s life nor after his death, literary critics never decided which genre, direction, or style to classify his work into. This is how the term “Vian’s” prose appeared and has already become established... An essay by the translator M. Anninskaya about the bright short life of Vian was first published in the magazine “Foreign Literature” 1999, No. 11. In the collection “Blues for a Black Cat: Novel, Stories, Play, poems, songs" (Eksmo publishing house, 2002, Series "Twentieth Century"), this essay was published as an introductory article entitled "The Great Mystifier from Saint-Germain-des-Prés."