The young protagonist Alyosha spends his years living with his mother in his grandfather's house after his father's death. During this time, he was loved and cared for by his grandmother, and was nurtured by the beautiful fairy tales told by his grandmother, but he also witnessed the selfishness and greed shown by his two uncles in their fights over the family's property and in the trivialities of life. This real-life existence of good and evil, love and hate in his young mind left a deep impression. Alyosha spent his childhood in this "suffocating, horrible world".
Childhood is the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels (the other two being On Earth and My University) written by the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky based on his own experiences.
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), the founder of Soviet literature. Originally named Alexei Maximovich Pishkov, Gorky was born in a carpenter's home on the banks of the Volga River, and when he was young, his parents died and he lived in the house of his maternal grandfather, who owned a small dye house. Then his maternal grandfather went bankrupt, and at the age of ten Alexei wandered through society, working as a variety of odd jobs.
Expanded Information
Background: Childhood is the first of Gorky's trilogy of autobiographical novels . As early as the 1890s, Gorky had the idea of writing a biographical work. Between 1908 and 1910, Lenin was a guest at Gorky's apartment on the Italian island of Capri, and Gorky told him more than once about his childhood and adolescence.
On one occasion, Lenin said to Gorky: "You should write everything, old friend, you must! It's all superbly educational, superbly!" Gorky said, "One day in the future, I will write it ......" and soon he fulfilled this promise.