Kazakov, Yurii [How I Built a House]. Kak Ia Stroil Dom.

Illustrations by F. Lemkul. 

Moskva, Izdatel’stvo “Detskaia literature”, 1967. 
8vo, 11, [5] pp., ill. 

In original pictorial wrappers. 
Near very good condition, lightly rubbing to spine. 

The only edition. 

This whimsical story follows a man with countless relatives who decides to build a house to accommodate them all. He starts by building the smoke but soon runs out of materials for the house itself. Feeling discouraged, he imagines the house that could exist beneath this smoke, and in his imagination, it appears in full. Inspired, he gathers all his relatives to this place, where there is no house, only beautiful smoke – and they live there happily ever after.
This absurdist story, rich in allusions and subtle critique of the Soviet regime, was written by Yuri Kazakov (1927–1982), a master of the short story ‘who worked in the classic Russian lyrical style of Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin’. Originally trained as a musician, Kazakov later devoted himself to literature.
The illustrations for this book were created by the renowned children’s book artist Fyodor Lemkul (1914–1995). A graduate of the State Polygraphic Technical School, Lemkul spent his entire career working in children’s publishing. He was also a passionate collector of antique glass, and after his death, his collection was donated to the Museum of Private Collections, part of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

We could not locate any copies of this edition in the United States.