My Childhood book cover

My Childhood

Maxim Gorky · English text · 81,681 words

Maxim Gorky recounts a difficult childhood marked by poverty, family conflict, and encounters with people whose kindness and cruelty shape his view of life.

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Background

The first volume of Gorky’s autobiographical trilogy uses vivid personal episodes to portray social hardship in late-imperial Russia.

Reading notes

  • Track the people who offer the child alternative models of life.
  • Notice how memory changes the emotional distance of a scene.
  • Consider the relationship between personal experience and social portrait.