Based on a review at the Modern Novel website, part of this story involves the devil showing photographs of the future to a man named Vanoski (an obscure author from the 1930s). So, we’ve got photos-from-the-future, but no actual time travel. However, there is time travel in another story (“Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)”) from the Teacher of Symmetry Cycle. And just to pile satire on top of satire, the 16 stories in the cycle were purportedly written by an obscure Englishman named A. Tired-Boffin, and Bitov was merely the humble messenger who provided translations of these lost gems into Russian.

Also, according to Fantlab[/b] and Labirint, this is the central story of Bitov’s Teacher of Symmetry Cycle, which consists of 16 of avant-garde stories by an unknown English author, A. Tired-Boffin (1859–1937). Bitov purportedly found and translated some of these stories to Russian.
Итак, на фотографии был бесспорно я, и мое будущее лицо мне нравилось и подходило, но чем же оно тогда было так искажено?
translate So, it was undeniably me in the photograph, and I liked and suited my future face, but why was it so distorted then?

Tags

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Variants

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  1. “Преподаватель симметрии,” as by Тайрд-Боффин Э, Yunostʹ, April 1987.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Андре́й Би́тов as by Тайрд-Боффин Э
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Андре́й Би́тов ()

Indexer Notes

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  1. Debut—See Fantlab, which notes that the story was presented as if it were a translation of of work by an unknown English author.
  2. English Quote—From a Google translation of the text from Libking.
  3. Series Order—We use a Fantlab listing as the starting point for defining Bitov’s Teacher of Symmetry Cycle. It lists the novelette “Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)” as the earliest and this novella as the second.
  4. Later Edition—We don’t know the extent to which the 2008 edition (Prepodavatelʹ simmetrii, translated to English as Symmetry Teacher in 2014) was revised and expanded.