Writers

Alexander Terekhov

Born: 1966

Quick Study: Alexander Terekhov, a former journalist, is a diverse writer: he has written satire, accounts of military service, and a documentary-like novel.

The Terekhov File: Terekhov began his writing career with magazine journalism after he completed his army service, where he was a radio operator. Terekhov won the 2012 National Bestseller Award for his Germans, which portrays contemporary Moscow, and his documentary novel The Stone Bridge is a fictional investigation into the death of two Stalin-era teenagers that began with the idea to write an essay. The Stone Bridge won second prize in the 2009 Big Book Award competition. Terekhov’s previous writing includes the novel The Rat Catcher, about a town with such a surplus of rats that it can’t become a tourist destination, as well as stories about army life.

Psssst………: Terekhov has called journalism, even investigative journalism, “writing on toilet paper,” comparing the life to that of a hunting dog that fetches when people whistle.

Terekhov’s Places: Born in Tula. Some readers may identify Terekhov with Moscow’s Stone Bridge because of his novel called The Stone Bridge.

The Word on Terekhov: Doris Lessing said of The Rat Catcher, “I always do like these sardonic Russian tales – a genre on their own – that take satire to its extreme.”

Terekhov on Terekhov: Terekhov has said he sees himself as a writer but not as a citizen, adding, “But there is one thing of which I have always been [and remain] certain, and I don’t know why myself: I’m a typical, average, ordinary person.” When asked who he’d be if he could do anything he wanted, he said clown or tour guide, adding, “Though in some sense that’s how everything worked out.”

On Writing: Terekhov has said he sees every book as “an open palm of the hand, [where] everything is visible.”

Terekhov Recommends: Terekhov recommends Valentin Rasputin, Vasilii Belov, Vladimir Makanin, and Boris Yekimov. 


More on Terekhov

Selected Awards & Nominations:

  • Germans – National Bestseller, winner, 2012; Russian Booker, finalist, 2012
  • The Stone Bridge – Big Book, finalist and second prize, 2009

 

Translations:

  • The Rat Killer (Крысобой) (tr. N. Roy and B.T. Gall) (Alma Books, 2009), re-released as The Rat Catcher (2011).
  • The Stone Bridge (Каменный мост) (tr. Simon Patterson) (Glagoslav, forthcoming, fall 2012)
  • Anthologies and Journals: Terekhov’s army stories were published in Sea Stories/Army Stories (Glas, 2007, tr. Ben Hooson) and “The Night Between Two Days” appeared in Metamorphoses (December 1994, tr. Laszlo Tikos). The story “Pitch Black Void” is available online on Opendemocracy.net (tr. Nathan Longan).

 

Other Selected Titles:

  • An Unbearably Bright Future (Это невыносимо светлое будущее), 2009

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