Boris Akunin
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Boris Akunin (Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili), the Russian (ethnic Georgian) essayist, literary translator, and fiction writer. He was born on May 20, 1956 in Georgia, and since 1958 has lived in Moscow. "Akunin" is a Japanese word that translates loosely to "villain." In his novel "Diamond Chariot," the author defines an "akunin" further as one who creates his own rules. The pseudonym "B. Akunin" also refers to the anarchist Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin.
Akunin, influenced by Japanese Kabuki theatre, joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of the countries of Asia and Africa of Moscow State University and became a Japanist.
He worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign literature, however at the beginning of October 2000 left there to work in fiction.
Boris is the editor-in-chief of 20 books of "Anthology of the Japanese literature", chairman of the board of a megaproject "Pushkin library " (Soros Fund), and the author of the book "The Writer and Suicide" (M.: the New literary review, 1999), literary - critiques, translations from Japanese, American and English literature and works of fiction written under a pseudonym Boris Akunin (novels and stories in the following series: "Adventures of Erast Fandorin", "The Adventures of sister Pelagia" and "The Adventures of the master"). Akunin's specialty is historical mysteries set in Tsarist Russia.
In 2000 Boris Akunin was nominated for the Smirnoff-Booker prize. In September of 2000, Akunin was named the Russian Writer of the Year and was the winner of the literary prize "Antibooker" for 2000 for the novel Crowning or Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs.
Erast Fandorin books have been published in Italy, France, Japan, USA, Germany and in other countries.
In late 2003 The British Crime Writers' Association announced its short lists for its Daggers Awards 2003. Boris Akunin's The Winter Queen was shortlisted in the category Gold & Silver Daggers for Fiction.
Works
- Comedy/Tragedy (the Tragedy is also known as "Hamlet, by B. Akunin")
- Mirror of Saint Germain
- Pelagiya and the white bulldog
- Pelagiya and the red rooster
- Pelagiya and the black monk
- Fairy tales for Idiots
- The Seagull (a reworking of Anton Chekhov's Seagull as a mystery)
- Nicolas Fandorin 1 - Altyn Tolobas
- Nicolas Fandorin 2 - Home reading
- Erast Fandorin
- Azazel (translated as The Winter Queen)
- Turkish gambit
- Leviathan (also translated as Murder on the Leviathan)
- Death of Achilles
- The Jack of Spades
- The Set dresser (or The Decorator)
- The Councillor of state
- Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs
- The Mistress of Death
- Lover of death
- Diamond Chariot
External link
- Akunin's site (in Russian) (http://akunin.ru/)de:Boris Akunin
fi:Boris Akunin fr:Boris Akounine ru:Чхартишвили, Григорий Шалвович