In America

Born Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov on March 16, 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia - later renamed in his honor - Maxim Gorky would learn early the harsh lessons of life. He spent his early childhood in Astrakhan where his father worked as a shipping agent, but when the boy was only five years old, his father died, and he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents. This was not a happy time for the young Gorky as conditions were poor and often violent. At the age of eight, the boy's grandfather forced him to quit school and apprenticed him to several tradesmen including a shoemaker and an icon painter. Fortunately, Gorky also worked as a dishwasher on a Volga steamer where a friendly cook taught him to read, and literature soon became his passion.At the age of twelve, Gorky ran away from home and barely survived, half starving, moving from one small job to the next. He was often beaten by his employers and seldom had enough to eat. The bitterness of these early experiences led him to choose the name Maxim Gorky (which means "the bitter one") as his pseudonym.T.OCIN AMERICA-The City of the Yellow Devil-Realm to Boredom-The MobMY INTERVIEWS-One of the Kings of the Republic-A Priest of Morality-The Lords of LifeREPPLY TO A QUESTIONNAIRE RECEIVED FROM AN AMERICAN MAGAZINEAUTHOR COMMENTS"But, of course, what you call the civilization of the U.S.A. does not and cannot excite my sympathies. I think your civilization is the most deformed civilization on our planet, because it has magnified to monstrous proportions all the many and shameful deformities of European civilization." Maxim GorkyGorky, Maxim is the author of 'In America' with ISBN 9780898753042 and ISBN 089875304X.