The Phenomenon of a creative failure. /Edited and prefaced by A.V. Podchinenov and T.A. Snigireva. Ekaterinburg: Ural State University Press, 2011. 424 p.

The work under review is the collective monograph «The Phenomenon of a creative failure» published in 2011 at Ural State University. The failure of a literary work involves different aspects: causes, consequences, readers’ reception and criticism, the author’s reflection, creative potential of the «unsuccessful» text. The review raises a range of scientific problems considered in each chapter of the monograph. The authors of the monograph cover and analyze the creative failures of Russian Literature ranging from the Old Russian works and the texts by G. Derzhavin to the last texts by L. Petrushevskaya, V. Makanin, A. Bitov, and V. Aksenov.