Pavel Basinsky
Biography
Pavel Basinsky was born in 1961 in Frolovo, near Volgograd. He studied at Saratov University and at the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow. A prolific journalist and author, Basinsky has excelled at a number of genres, from scholarly monographs to experimental novels. Basinsky holds a PhD in Comparative Literature, has sat on the jury of several major Russian literary prizes, such as the Russian Booker, the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize and the Yasnaya Polyana Prize, and is the Cultural Editor of Rossiiskaia Gazeta. He is married with two children and lives in Moscow.
Pavel Basinsky’s latest book, Leo Tolstoy: Flight from Paradise, came out in July 2010 and within two months had already been reprinted twice. According to sales figures from some of the largest Russian bookshops such as Moskva, Biblioglobus and Moscow House of Books, Escape from Paradise ranks among the top ten most popular books for Summer-Autumn 2010.
Books /selected/
Лев Толстой: бегство из рая / Leo Tolstoy: Flight from Paradise (2010)
Максим Горький. Миф и биография / Maxim Gorky: Myth and Biography (2008)
Русский роман или Жизнь и приключения Джона Половинкина / A Russian Romance or The Life and Adventures of John Polovinkin (2008)
Московский пленник / The Prisoner of Moscow (2004)
Prizes and awards
2010 - The Big Book Prize
2010 - Book of the Year
2008 - Shortlisted for the Big Book Prize
1998 - The Antibooker Prize Ray of Light Award for literary criticism