Aleksandr Abramovich Kabakov (Russian: Александр Абрамович Кабаков; (22 October 1943 - 18 April 2020), was a
Russian writer and journalist.
Biography
Aleksandr Kabakov was born in 22 October 1943 in
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...
, where his family had been evacuated during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. He studied mechanics and mathematics in
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...
, and worked in a missile factory after graduation. Eventually, he landed at the railroad industry newspaper ', where he worked for more than a decade; he also worked at ''
Moscow News
''The Moscow News'', which began publication in 1930, was Russia's oldest English-language newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the Russian language ''Moskovskiye Novosti.''
History Soviet Union
In 1930 ''The Mo ...
'' and ''
Kommersant
(, , ''The Businessman'' or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published in Russia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia certified July 2013 circulation of the daily ...
''.
He became well known during the
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...
period for his
dystopian novel
Utopian and dystopian fiction are subgenres of speculative fiction that explore extreme forms of social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality ...
''No Return'', which was translated into multiple languages and also adapted into a film. The English translation was done by
Thomas Whitney. Other noted works include ''The Last Hero'' (1995) and ''Nothing's Lost'' (2003), which won the second jury prize from the
Big Book Award and the . With
Yevgeny Popov, he co-wrote a book of reminiscences about the writer
Vasily Aksyonov that was shortlisted for the 2012 Big Book Award.
He died in Moscow in 18 April 2020.
Works
* Aksyonov (co-written with
Evgeny Popov) – second jury prize,
Big Book Award, 2012
* Nothing's Lost – Big Book Award finalist, 2006, won second jury prize; won the Apollon Grigoriev Prize, 2004
* Moscow Tales – Big Book Award finalist, 2006; won Prose of the Year, 2005; won the , 2006
* No Return (Невозвращенец) (William Morrow & Co., 1990, tr.
Thomas Whitney)
* Anthologies: “Shelter” in ''Read Russia!'' (Read Russia, 2012, tr.
Daniel Jaffe) and ''Life Stories: Original Works'' by Russian Writers (Russian Life, 2009, tr. Anna Seluyanova)
* A Runaway (Беглец), 2009
* The Imposter (Самозванец), 1997
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kabakov, Aleksandr
1943 births
2020 deaths
Writers from Novosibirsk
Russian male journalists
21st-century Russian male writers