Oleg Pavlov

Oleg Pavlov (Russian:Павлов, Олег Олегович) was born in Moscow in 1970. He is a prominent Russian writer and winner of the Russian Booker Prize. His first novel, Captain of the Steppe, has been translated into English and published by And Other Stories in 2013.^[1]

Life

Born in Moscow in 1970, Pavlov spent his military service as a prison guard in Kazakhstan. Many of the incidents portrayed in his fiction were inspired by his experiences there.^[2]

During his service, Pavlov suffered a head injury, was hospitalised, and spent over a month in a psychiatric ward. This allowed him to be released from the army before the end of the mandatory two-year military service. He went on to study at the Institute of Literature in Moscow.

Work

He was only 24 years old when his first novel, Captain of the Steppe, was published, receiving praise not only from critics but from the jury of the Russian Booker Prize, which shortlisted the novel for the 1995 award. Pavlov went on to win the Prize in 2002 with his next book, the second novel in what would become the trilogy Tales from the Last Days.^[3]

Pavlov is also the author of articles on literature and historical and social aspects of life in Russia, as well as numerous essays. In his 2003 book "The Russian Man in the 20th Century", he writes about Russian life, not only based on his personal experience, but also on numerous letters received from the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Foundation in the early 1990s, which were given to him by the famous Russian writer and dissident and his wife, Natalia.

Oleg Pavlov is said to be one of the most gifted examples of what has been dubbed the "renaissance in Russian literature."

Captain of the Steppe has been translated into English by Ian Appleby and published by independent London publisher And Other Stories in 2013.^[4]

Awards

• 2012 Solzhenitsyn Prize (Russia)
• Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger 2012
• Shortlisted for Russian National Literary Award 'Big Book' (2010)
• Znamya Literary Magazine Prize (2009)
• October Literary Magazine Prize (Best Fiction of the Year 1997, 2002)
• Russian Booker Prize (2002)
• Novy Mir Literary Magazine Prize (1995)
• Russian Booker of the Decade nominee (2011)^[5]

Novels

• Captain of the Steppe trans. Ian Appleby London: And Other Stories, 2013. ISBN 9781908276186

References

External links

• Oleg Pavlov's official site (Russian)