Boris Ryzhy

Aliona van der Horst draws the portrait of a young 21st century poet, Boris Ryzhy, for whom life became unbearable. Through conversations with neighbors, family and friends, she pieces together a picture of the passionate and complex life of the poet. What emerges is a penetrating portrait of the perestroika generation who lost all certainties, becoming a generation of criminals and bodyguards. But despite all, Ryzhy loved this unhappy world, populated half by prisoners and half by their guards. He tried to transform its ugliness into the philosopher’s gold of poetic prosody.