Mikhail Kuzmin, a professional composer, became a published poet only at the age of thirty-two, but he quickly won for himself a distinctive place in Russian literature. A prolific writer, he worked in many genres besides poetry, including prose,...

Mikhail Kuzmin: A Life in Art By John E. Malmstad and Nikolay Bogomolov Harvard University Press 512 pages, $52. AMID the turmoil and carnage that followed the Russian Revolution, a young gay poet called Leonid Kannegiser had a lover who...

MIKHAIL KUZMIN (1872-1936) is described on the book's jacket as "Russia's first openly gay writer". Indeed he could claim to be the first in any literature of modern times. The great literary precedents in male same-sex eroticism are, of course, Plato's Symposium, Shakespeare's sonnets...