Writers

Boris Minaev

Boris Minaev

Born: 1959

Quick Study: Boris Minaev’s career in letters weaves together seemingly disparate threads: he edits a journal for men that focuses on reading material, and his books include a biography of Boris Yeltsin and collections of stories about a Russian boy.

The Minaev File: Journalist, fiction writer, and editor Boris Minaev is probably best known among Russian readers for two very different works: a 2010 biography of Boris Yeltsin and a collection of short stories about a boy named Lyova that was first published in book form in 2001. Minaev is head editor of the magazine Medved (Bear), which calls itself “a men’s journal for reading.” Minaev fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming a journalist; he has worked for several other publications, including the magazine Ogonyok  and the newspaper Komsomolskaya pravda.

Psssst………: Minaev began writing as a teenager, composing stories and notes about happenings in the yard around his building.

Marina Adamovich

Marina Adamovich

Born: 1958

Quick Study: Marina Adamovich is editor-in-chief of Novyi Zhurnal, a Russian-language literary journal published in the U.S.

The Adamovich File: Marina Adamovich, a journalist by education, has served as editor-in-chief of the quarterly Novyi Zhurnal (The New Review), a storied émigré journal based in New York, since 2005. The New Review publishes contemporary and classic poetry and a broad selection of prose, including fiction and nonfiction pieces about history, language, and literature. Adamovich has written essays and critical pieces for other “thick” Russian journals, including Kontinent, Novyi mir, and Znamia.

Psssst………: Adamovich said in an interview that New Review’s goal was established in its first issue, in 1942, as, “Russia. Freedom. Emigration,” adding that, “Nothing has changed” but noting a bit later that, in a globalized world, emigration and immigration have shifted to migration. New Review was forbidden in the Soviet Union.

Igor Sakhnovsky

Igor Sakhnovsky

Born: 1958

Died: 2019

Quick Study: Igor Sakhnovsky writes fiction with mystical, humorous, and romantic touches.

The Sakhnovsky File: Igor Sakhnovsky is a prose writer, editor, and poet who published his first novel, The Vital Needs of the Dead, in 1999 in the journal New World. Sakhnovsky’s fiction often combines realism, humor, and an element of fantasy or magical realism. His The Man Who Knew Everything, about a man who can access knowledge about nearly everything on earth after an electrical accident, was shortlisted for the 2007 Russian Booker and Big Book awards, and won the 2008 Bronze Snail award; the novel was adapted for screen in 2009.

Psssst………: Sakhnovsky was first published in the newspaper The Orsk Worker as a teenager, in 1972. As a child, he told people he wanted to be Odysseus when he grew up because Odysseus was his favorite character. Travel appealed to him.

Vadim Yarmolinets

Vadim Yarmolinets

Born: 1958

Quick Study: Vadim Yarmolinets, who has lived in the United States for over 20 years, is a fiction writer, journalist, and radio host who also founded a literary award.

The Yarmolinets File: Vadim Yarmolinets is a journalist and fiction writer who made the Big Book Award short list in 2009 with the novel Lead Zeppelin: Jericho 86-89, a book that includes Yarmolinets’s native city, Odessa, and a journalist character who’s forced to move to the United States. Yarmolinets’s literary resume also includes books of “ironic prose,” essays, and stories. He has worked as a journalist in Odessa and New York, and hosts a morning show on Davidzon Radio, an AM station.

Psssst………: Yarmolinets founded and coordinates the O. Henry “Gift of the Magi” literary competition for Russian-language short stories with themes from “The Gift of the Magi.”

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