Valery Georgievich Popov () (born December 8, 1939) is a Russian writer, "one of the leading representatives of the Leningrad school of fiction." He has written about twenty books for adults and children as well as poems and screenplays. Born in

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

into the family of a biologist, he graduated from

Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI" (ETU or ETU "LETI"; ) is a public university. It was founded in 1886 as a Technical College. LETI, as it is popularly called, received the status of a higher education institution in 1899 and b ...

in 1963 and worked as an engineer until 1969; in 1970 he graduated from the

Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, officially the S. A. Gerasimov All-Russian University of Cinematography (, meaning ''All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography named after S. A. Gerasimov''), a.k.a. VGIK, is a film school in Moscow, ...

. His first story was published in 1963 and his first collection, ''Yuzhnee, chem prezhde'' ("''Further south than before''") in 1969. During this period he was, along with

Sergei Dovlatov Sergei Donatovich Dovlatov (; 1941 1990) was a Soviet journalist and writer. Internationally, he is one of the most popular Russian writers of the late 20th century. Biography Dovlatov was born on 3 September 1941 in Ufa, the capital of Bas ...

, in a "group of aspiring young writers called Gorozhane (The Townsmen) — a group that included Vladimir Maramzin, Valery Popov, Boris Vakhtin, and Igor Yefimov." Jekaterina Young writes of these early stories:

The emphasis is upon the narrator's complex reactions and the construction of a world that is unusual and even absurd. The events narrated appear random; the author is not concerned to tell a story about a specific character. He is more interested in the intonation and rhythmic precision of his stories, almost all of which are first-person narratives.

His later works, "depicting surreal post-Soviet life, such as ''Days in the Harem'' (1994) and ''She-rascal'' (1996), utilize elements of the

picaresque novel The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for ' rogue' or 'rascal') is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish but appealing hero, usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrup ...

."Epstein, ''Russian Postmodernism'', p. 494. He has also written a biography (2010) of his friend Dovlatov.

Notes

1938 births Living people Russian male short story writers Russian male novelists Writers from Saint Petersburg Recipients of the Medal of Pushkin {{Russia-writer-stub