Dmitry Bykov
Biography
Dmitry Bykov is one of Russia’s most prominent and admired writers and public intellectuals. His often controversial and always engaging opinions can be found in newspapers, magazines, television and radio programmes and, of course, his own polemical novels. Regardless of his ubiquity and capacity for provocation, Bykov is recognised as a superb critic, essayist, novelist and poet, capable of expressing cultural insight with verve and humour.
Particularly notable among his recent works are his iconoclastic biography of Boris Pasternak, winner of the Big Book Award in 2006, and his novel Living Souls (2006), recently translated into English—an epic engagement with Russian culture and history which mingles the traditions of the great Russian novel with science fiction and counter-factual history. Born in Moscow in 1967, Bykov was an outstanding graduate of the Moscow State University Faculty of Journalism, and still writes for and edits numerous prominent literary magazines.
Bykov's latest novel is Ostromov, or The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a coruscating mash-up of history, magic realism and picaresque, which chronicles the intrigues surrounding the trial of Russia’s last Freemasons in 1920s Leningrad, and is set to delight the reader with a fresh, skewed vision of the early days of the Soviet Union.
Books /selected/
Остромов или ученик чародея / The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010)
Списанные / The List (2008)
Был ли Горький? / Was Gorky real? (2008)
Борис Пастернак / Boris Pasternak (2005)
In Translation
in English
Living Souls (2010)
Prizes and awards /selected/
2008 - The Portal Prize
2007 - Strugatskys’ International Literary Prize
2006 - The Big Book Prize
2006 - National Bestseller Prize
