Viktor Astafyev

Viktor Astafyev
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born in 1924 in the region of Krasnoyarsk, on the bank of Yenisei; spent much of his childhood in an orphanage; conscripted in the Soviet Army in 1942, wounded in the war; from 1945 on, lived in various regions of Russia (Urals, Perm, Vologda), working as a locksmith and smelter; published his first book in 1953l passed away in 2001 (wiki).

Astafyev has always been a highly individual writer who conforms to no movements or stereotypes.... He has always remained true to himself, and has retained a certain hard-edged integrity. His novel Прокляты и убиты is a gritty, typically uncompromising picture of war, with many naturalistic descriptions in a style the author has developed since the cathartic Печальный детектив. Astafyev remains very much a writer who refuses to be easily categorized: he is neither a Village Prose Writer, nor a writer of war prose, nor a writer who explores the mistakes of the recent Soviet past. At the same time, he is all of these. Capable of surprising and even shocking his reader, Astafyev maintains a deep lyrical sense that has produced what Eidelman called the best descriptions of nature for decades. More than any other writer living in Russia today (with the possible exception of Solzhenitsyn), he is a writer who examines man as subjected to and molded by the total Soviet experience.

(David Gillespie, quoted in wiki)

(Жизнь в Kнигах)