Andrei Usachev was born in 1958 in Moscow. He attended the Moscow Institute of Electronics but left to study humanities at Tver State University. His first published work appeared in 1985, and from 1988 he has been a full-time author, mainly of work for children. Usachev has been extremely prolific, having had 150 books published in Russia.

Ludmila Ulitskaya was born in 1943 in the Urals and graduated from Moscow University with a Degree of Master in Biology. She worked in the Institute of Genetics as a scientist. Shortly before Perestroika she became Repertory Director of the Hebrew Theatre of Moscow and began writing scripts. Ulitskaya can be defined as one of the most far-reaching contemporary Russian writers with over two million books sold worldwide.

Sergei Kostin is a spy novelist, expert in the history of espionage, and documentary film maker. Graduating from the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages, Kostin refused an offer to collaborate with Soviet intelligence, preferring to work as a translator in Algeria. He returned to the theme of espionage during the Nineties, after being graduated from Cinema College (VGIK) as scriptwriter and while working for Russian and French TV Channels.

Alexander Ilichevsky was born in Sumgait, Azerbaijan in 1970 and graduated in theoretical physics from a technological institute affiliated to Moscow University. He is the author of many literary works in various genres, both poetry and prose, all of which have been published in Russia’s most prestigious literary journals, such as Novy mir (New World), Oktiabr (October) – and all to great literary acclaim.

Marina Boroditskaya is a Russian poet and translator. She graduated in 1976 from the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages, and is well known for translating English, American and French classical poetry. She has published numerous books of children’s poetry in Russia, and translated many English-language children’s writers, including A. A. Milne, Eleanor Farjeon and Hilaire Belloc.

Born in the small Georgian industrial town of Zestafoni in 1956 to a Georgian father and Russian-teacher mother, Akunin is an essayist, literary translator and a celebrated writer of detective fiction. After developing an interest in Japanese Kabuki theater, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moscow State University as an expert on Japan.

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.

The BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand was held at the London Book Fair for the third time by the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication in collaboration with Academia Rossica. Building on the success of last year, publishers were offered even greater opportunities for creating and expanding business links with the fast growing Russian book market. This was of particular important this year as part of the lead up to the 2011 London Book Fair, where Russia will be the Guest of Honour. Despite being affected by the unexpected volcanic activity, as was the entire London Book Fair, we were very pleased to see that the BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand was one of the liveliest at the fair.

Dmitry Bykov was born in Moscow in 1967. He studied at Moscow State University's Faculty of Journalism, and journalism is something he remains engaged with: he regularly produces articles, essays and reviews for the leading Russian newspapers and magazines. He has senior editorial positions in various publications, hosts a weekly radio show and appears regularly on Russian TV. Bykov's literary output is voluminous. He has published eight novels, biographies of Pasternak and Bulat Okudjava, several collections of short stories, three volumes of essays and eight collections of poetry. His biography of Pasternak won the National Bestseller Prize and the 2007 Big Book Prize and was a critical and commercial hit, enjoying three print runs.

Yume Pictures and Academia Rossica are delighted to invite you to a special screening of the film 'A Room and a Half' at 8pm on 10 May at Cine Lumière, South Kensington, London, SW7 2DT, followed by Q&A with director Andrey Khrzhanovsky and actress Alisa Freyndlikh. It is a beautifully mesmerising film based on the life of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.

The Debut Prize was instituted in 2000 by State Duma Deputy Andrei Skoch, creator of the humanitarian foundation Pokolenie (Generation). Skoch originally conceived of Pokolenie as a medical charity to help provincial Russian clinics, sick children and pensioners. The Debut, Pokolenie’s only cultural project to date, has become a prize of national renown. The Debut has a strict age limit: entrants may not be over the age of 25. Members of the Russian literary establishment were skeptical at first. They doubted that writers so young would have something to say to readers. Young writers might try their hand at poetry, they argued, but they didn’t have enough life experience to write a story or a novel. However, the Debut has shown that a person’s life experience at any age is complete in and of itself. What a person knows about the world at 20 has been forgotten by the time he is 30. What he could have written at 20 he will no longer write at 30. He will write something else. Strangely enough, most writers live without their first book: it remains in their minds, in drafts. The Debut inspires young Russian writers to complete that first book. The Debut prompts them to commit to literature their unique experience, what might be described as the shock of their first encounter with grown-up life. Not just their new existential status, but daily events. Suddenly a person is faced with bank applications, having to pay rent and buy insurance; no one will fill out the forms for him, no one will answer for him. And he suddenly feels horribly alone in the world. This sort of loneliness, like any other, has a huge creative potential. The Debut brings in the first literary harvest of the writing generation — and it does so every year. 2010 marks the first year of Debut’s international program. Funded by Pokolenie, the program aims to present the works of Debut finalists and winners to the foreign reader. Collections of these works will be translated and their authors will be sent to international book fairs and festivals. This year’s collection appears in English and Chinese. Future collections will be brought out in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and so on. Since the number of Debut finalists and winners is only increasing, as is their level and mastery, publication of their works in English will continue.

26 May
Moscow
On the 26th of May, the names of the writers shortlisted for the 'Big Book' literary prize were announced. 13 authors have been shortlisted. Two of the shortlisted books were entered into the competition as manuscripts: Mariam Petrosyan's 'The House Where'and Andrei Baldin's 'The Extension of the Full Stop'.

Mikhail Shishkin was born in 1961 and grew up in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute where he trained as a teacher. Following his graduation in 1982, Shishkin worked as a journalist at ‘Rovesnik’ and then, between 1985 and 1995, as a teacher of English and German. In 1995 he moved to Switzerland and he lives in Zurich to this day. Buoyed by Shishkin’s sophisticated language and phrases of unique melody, predictable comparisons have been made to that other writer of extraordinary linguistic versatility, Vladimir Nabokov. Though he understands himself as within a tradition of Russian writers in exile, for Shishkin, the question ‘to return or not to return to Russia’ simply does not exist. He asserts that ‘for a better understanding of the self one should live everywhere’.

Deputy director of the RAN Institute of Economics
This year, he was awarded a European prize for his ‘Contribution to Economics’. With R.S. Greenberg, he co-founded the concept ‘Economic socio-dynamism’, about which more than 10 studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad.

Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow
Kirill is an internationally renowned film critic and lecturer in directing and script writing at the Institute for European Culture in Moscow.

Film critic
Plakhov was born in Starokostiantyniv, Ukrainian SSR. After graduating in mechanics and mathematics from Lviv University, he studied history of cinema at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

President of the International Institute of Global Development
Mr. Lebedev’s career commenced in 1977 at the Russian Academy of Sciences, after which he spent several years as a diplomat, being posted to Russia’s Embassy to the UK as both Third and subsequently Second Secretary.

Director of the Institute for International Economic and Political Studies
Ruslan Grinberg is the director of the Economy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Director of the Institute for International Economic and Political Studies
Ruslan Grinberg is the director of the Economy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Deputy director of the RAN Institute of Economics
This year, he was awarded a European prize for his ‘Contribution to Economics’. With R.S. Greenberg, he co-founded the concept ‘Economic socio-dynamism’, about which more than 10 studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad.

President of the International Institute of Global Development
Mr. Lebedev’s career commenced in 1977 at the Russian Academy of Sciences, after which he spent several years as a diplomat, being posted to Russia’s Embassy to the UK as both Third and subsequently Second Secretary.

Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow
Kirill is an internationally renowned film critic and lecturer in directing and script writing at the Institute for European Culture in Moscow.

Film critic
Plakhov was born in Starokostiantyniv, Ukrainian SSR. After graduating in mechanics and mathematics from Lviv University, he studied history of cinema at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

Doctor of History, Professor at MGIMO University, Moscow
One of the most renowned Russian political experts, he has worked at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Science for many years.

Scriptwriter, 20 Cigarettes
Dmitry was born in 1974 in Moscow. In 2000 he entered the scriptwriting department at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography.

Producer, Best of Times
Born in 1968 in Chelyabinsk, he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics in 1991. In 2003 he became the general director of the Gorky Film Studio.