A Russian man was stabbed to death by his friend in a drunken argument over literary genres, a leading British daily reported Thursday.
The pair engaged in an animated discussion on the merits of poetry over prose during a drinking session, which soon escalated into a lethal brawl, The Independent quoted the police as saying.
"The host insisted that real literature is prose, while his guest, a former teacher, argued in favour of poetry," police in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk said in a statement.
"The literary dispute soon grew into a banal conflict, on the basis of which the 53-year-old admirer of poetry killed his opponent with a knife."
The suspect fled his home in the town of Irbit in the Ural mountains, where the 67-year-old victim was killed Jan 20. He was later arrested and charged with murder.
The body of the victim was found in a nearby village.
