Alexander Terekhov
Biography
Terekhov’s 'fine satire' as it was noted by The Guardian was compared by The Moscow Times to that of Saltykov-Shchedrin and the individuality of his language to that of Platonov. His writing, they suggest, ‘is packed with forceful imagery and the slang of modern Russia... [and] a distinctive and individual intonation’.
Alexander Terekhov was born in June 1966 in the provincial town of Tula, just south of Moscow. After graduating in journalism from Moscow State University he was conscripted and served in the Soviet Union’s Internal Security Forces. After the army Terekhov worked as a reporter for the cultural sections of the journals Ogonek and Stolitsa, and then in various editorial positions. At the same time he began to win acclaim for his literary dissection of military life and his depiction of the chaos that perestroika had ushered in across provincial Russia.
The novel that has garnered the most attention and critical praise was 1997's The Rat Killer. Terekhov has been translated into English, French and German. His novel The Stone Bridge, an exploration into the mysteries of Stalin’s Moscow, took second prize at the 2009 Big Book award, and in 2012 he won the National Bestseller Award for his novel Germans, in which he draws on his experiences as the Director of a press centre between 1999 and 2008.
Books /selected/
Немцы / Germans (2012)
Каменный мост / The stone bridge (2009)
Мемуары срочной службы / Army Stories (2001)
Крысобой / The Rat-Killer (1995)
Прошу простить / Asking for Forgiveness (1993)
In Translation
in English
The Rat-Killer (2008)
Army Stories (2007)
Prizes and awards
2012 - National Bestseller Award
2009 - The Big Book Prize