Prokofiev's opera The Story of a Real Man is based on the novel of the same name by Boris Polevoi, which was first published in 1946 as a short story in the journal October. The following year, Polevoi was made a laureate of the State Prize for Real Man. Polevoi revised Real Man several times; the 1949 book edition is considered definitive. The events of the novel were inspired by the author's wartime meeting in July 1943 his opera. The composer thus had no benefit of hindsight, and the events of the opera were with the fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev, who was alive at the time Prokofiev was writing still in the public's psyche and not yet subject to mythologisation. In this sense, Real Man is a documentary opera.

As he had done in two of his previous operas, Prokofiev chose to explore the theme of war. By the time he came to conceptualise Story of a Real Man he was well-versed in a working version of Socialist Realism, to the extent that anyone ‘understand’ the term during that period. Although Prokofiev was working on War and Peace and Real Man at the same time, they provide different musical and dramatic perspectives on the topic of war, as well as on Prokofiev's continuously evolving concept of opera. While War and Peace is epic in scope and vision – which is also reflected in the musical materials, ideas, structures, and forms – Real Man is, as its title suggests, a more personal and smallscale narrative, one that was applicable to Soviet reality but less compelling on a global stage. Here we see the composer's reflections on the role of the individual within the great canvas of war. In this regard, the story is almost diametrically opposed to that of War and Peace, with its dramatic battle panoramas and its emphasis on a broader view of war.

The novel is an expansion of the original short story. It is an excruciating and painstakingly detailed story of the pilot's survival, despite the numerous odds stacked against him. The novel opens with Alexei's ‘fatal blunder’ in which, following a daring but successful attack on an enemy transportation plane, he is lured into recklessly engaging in a battle with enemy planes.