Original translation by Irina Koltasheva, scanned from a 1999 Pocketbook edition of Phantom Press. “Working with Les in the same workshop, sitting at the next table and not writing about him was simply impossible,” recalls Joanna Khmelevskaya about her work on the novel “Les” .. - In rare moments of stagnation, I asked for a car from our secretary and created, and colleagues stuck behind my back and died laughing. The opportunity to laugh from the heart is given to us with you, dear reader, for in six years of work on the novel one of the most vivid and, perhaps, the most ironic work of the master was created. The main character - Les - is in no way inferior to Mrs. John in the ability to get into completely fantastic in its absurdity of the situation. regularly draws colleagues into extraordinary adventures (sometimes criminal) , not allowing the team of the architectural workshop and for a day to slide into a tumult of monotonous gray everyday life . The most unusual - the novel turned out to be prophetic: Les began to seriously engage in painting after the publication of the work of Joanna Khmelevskaya, who was the first to see in it the talent of the impressionist, and told the world about it. Initially calling the creation of Joan Pasquil, now Les considers it a kind of talisman, and the super cover of the first edition appears on every vernissage of the artist. Copyright Ioanna Chmielewska, «Lesio», 1973