People

Stephen Fry, Host of Russia’s Open Book.
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Sarah Wallis, director of Russia’s Open Book.
Director Sarah Wallis
Sarah Wallis
Paul Mitchell, director of Russia’s Open Book.
Director Paul Mitchell
Paul Mitchell
His biography of Boris Pasternak won Russia’s 2006 National Bestseller and Big Book awards; he won the National Bestseller again in 2011 for Ostromov, or The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Writer Dmitry Bykov
Dmitry Bykov
Referred to by Newsweek as “Russia’s Young Hemingway,” Prilepin is a veteran of the war in Chechenya, on which his 2005 novel, Pathologies, is based.
Zakhar Prilepin
Zakhar Prilepin
Born in Armenia when it was part of the Soviet Union, Mariam Petrosyan started writing her only novel, The House, In Which… as a teenager.
Writer Mariam Petrosyan
Mariam Petrosyan
Ludmila Ulitskaya is one of Russia’s most popular and celebrated writers. Her first novella, Sonechka, was published in the literary journal Novyi mir in 1992 and nominated for the 1993 Russian Booker Prize.
Writer Ludmila Ulitskaya
Ludmila Ulitskaya
Described as “the Tarantino of Russian literature,” Sorokin’s books were banned during the Soviet era. One of Russia’s best-known contemporary writers, Sorokin received the People’s Booker Prize in 2001 for Sbornik Rasskazov (Collected Stories).
Writer Vladimir Sorokin
Vladimir Sorokin
Starobinets’s short stories and novels defy the traditional horror genre by crossing over into fantasy, mysticism, and futuristic dystopia. Her short story collection, An Awkward Age, was a finalist for the Russian National Bestseller Prize in 2006.
Writer Anna Starobinets
Anna Starobinets