Jonathan Derbyshire reports from Moscow on Russia's literary scene
I meet Andrei Scoch in the cafe of a smart Moscow hotel, ten minutes' walk from the Kremlin and Red Square. A fit-looking mann of 45 with startlingly blue eyes, Skoch is a member of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, where he sits with Vladimir Putin's United Russia bloc.

An Awkward Age Anna Starobinets. Hesperus Press Ltd This book combines a format and genre that remain largely unknown in Russia – the short story and horror. Eight terrifying yarns about an ant colony living inside a teenager; a description of Moscow destroyed after a war between humans and androids; a southbound train chugging into an unknown dimension. The effect produced is that of sheer fear, largely due to the simplistic register and the realistic reportage-style descriptions. An Akward Age is the debut work of this young Moscow journalist (born 1978). It was followed by her equally chilling but less successful novel Asylum 3/9, and a critically acclaimed novel based on the feature-length animation film First Squad.

It's 2033; 20 years have passed since nuclear war destroyed the world and the pitiful remnants of Moscow's population is struggling to survive in Metro stations and tunnels where they have established a primitive economy, raising pigs and growing tea. Meanwhile, they have also created over a dozen mini-states, some on the outskirts that suffer from mutant invasions, and from where one inhabitant goes on a journey in search of help. Dmitry Glukhovsky was born in Moscow in 1979 and has lived in Israel, Germany and France. It took him eight years to write Metro 2033, which may partly explain his book’s popularity: it is not merely postapocalyptic science fiction, but a true coming-of-age novel.

29 March - 23 April, Finborough Theatre
Based on the 1927 black and white Russian film by Abram Room, Bed and Sofa is a musical written by Polly Pen and Laurence Klavan.

Over 50 of Russia’s leading authors are preparing to fly to the UK in April for a widespread programme of literary events. Discover the writers who are making the coffee houses of Moscow and St Petersburg buzz with excitement, debate and laughter. The full schedule of events in London and around the UK has been announced.

Andrey 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.

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’.

Anna Starobinets is one of a handful of Russian authors who writes in the genre of 'intellectual fantasy'. She was born in Moscow in 1978 and graduated in philology at Moscow State University. As a student she worked part time in several different fields, from simultaneous translation and private tutoring, to billposting and waitressing. After her finishing her degree she started work in journalism.

Olga Slavnikova graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Ekaterinburg State University in 1981 and began publishing fiction in the late 1980s during which time she was also fiction editor, then managing editor, of the literary magazine Ural. Slavnikova has lived and worked in Moscow since 2001.

Dina Rubina is one of the most widely-read Russian authors alive today. She was born in 1953, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she later studied music at the Tashkent Conservatory. At sixteen her first short story appeared in the journal Iunost’, which continued to publish her work until the end of the Soviet Union. Life in the colourful environment of Tashkent was not always easy: Rubina had to turn to writing for stage and screen and finally moved to Moscow in the mid-1980s.

Andrey Rodionov is one of the most remarkable figures in contemporary Russian poetry, art, music and theatre. His career began in 2000 in Moscow as a performer on poetry slams, and in 2002 he was awarded the Russian Slam prize. He continues to be a leading figure in the development of the Russian slam poetry movement: in December 2010, as a curator of the SlovoNova poetry festival, he organised the first national Russian slam final in Perm.

Oleg Pavlov is a prominent Russian writer and former winner of the Russian Booker Prize. Born in Moscow in 1970, Pavlov spent his military service working as prison guard near the city of Karaganda in Kazakhstan. Many of the incidents portrayed in his stories were inspired by his experiences there: he recalls how, while reading Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago he saw the very camp he had worked at, Karabas, mentioned and felt inspired to continue Solzhenitsyn’s work.

Dmitry Kuzmin, born in 1968, graduated from Moscow State University for Pedagogics and taught literature, working as an assistant professor of foreign literature and literary translation. In 1989 Kuzmin founded the Vavilon Union of Young Poets, the organisational hub for Moscow’s experimental poetry scene. In 1996 he started the Vavilon Internet project, an online anthology of current Russian writing. Since 1993 he has been the head of ARGO-RISK Publishers producing about 20 new poetry titles annually.

Dmitry Kosyrev is one of Russia’s leading thriller writers. Kosyrev, who writes under the distinctive alias Master Chen, a legacy of his long-standing interest in the Far East, was born in 1955 and studied Chinese history at Moscow State University and the Nanyang University of Singapore.Since the late 1970s he has been actively involved in the national media, writing on international politics for leading newspapers such as Pravda, Rossiiskaia gazeta and Nezavisimaia gazeta; he is a Member of the Board of the Foreign Policy Association.

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.

Sergei Ivanov is not only one of Russia’s most distinguished historians of Byzantium, but also a leading popular historian and columnist. Since receiving his PhD from Moscow State University in 1984, he has produced over 170 scholarly publications, including Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, which was published in English translation by the Oxford University Press in 2006, and Byzantine Missions, which is currently being translated into English and Czech.

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.

Linor Goralik was born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine in 1975 and emigrated to Israel before moving to Moscow in 2001. She has published a number of prose books including two novels written in collaboration: No was co-authored with Sergey Kuznetsov; and Half of the Sky, with Stanislav Lvovsky. Both were published in 2004. She has produced several poetry collections, with many pieces appearing in journals such as Novy Mir and Vozduh, as well as publishing two children’s stories.

Born in 1975, Alexander Garros studied literature in the University of Latvia and journalism in Moscow State University. He has worked as the editor of the cultural section in Novaya Gazeta and Ekspert. He currently lives in Moscow and works as the special reporter for the media project Snob.

One of the most fascinating authors to emerge in the turbulence of the 1990s, Maria Galina was born in Kalinin (now Tver) in 1958. She was brought up in Ukraine, studied marine biology at Odessa University. In the course of her studies, Galina became an expert in hydrobiology and worked on several expeditions examining environmental issues. Galina has lived in Moscow since 1987.

Andrei Bitov is one of the most important Russian writers of the last fifty years, justly famous for his groundbreaking post-modern novel Pushkin House. Born in Leningrad in 1937, Bitov spent the war in evacuation in the Urals and Uzbekistan. After returning to his native city in 1944, Bitov became a geologist, travelling all over the Soviet Union. He started writing short stories in 1959, but did not become a full-time writer until he moved to Moscow in 1963.

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.

Lev Danilkin, columnist for the Russian magazine, Afisha, is one of Russia most engaging literary critics and independent thinkers. Danilkin graduated from Moscow State University with a B.A. and PhD in philology. He is the former editor of Russian Playboy and is the author of several books, including ‘The Parthian Arrow’ (2006), ‘Circular journeys round the intestines of a beggar’ (2007)

Slavnikova began publishing fiction in the late 1980s (her first novel appeared in 1988), during which time she was also fiction editor, then managing editor, of the important literary magazine ‘Urals'. She has lived and worked in Moscow since 2001.

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

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.

Sergei Lukyanenko, born in Kazakhstan, is one of the foremost Russian science-fiction writers and has received tremendously high acclaim abroad. Originally studying as a psychiatrist, Lukyanenko turned to science-fiction writing with the monthly publication of Where the Mean Enemy Lurks in 1988. However, the works that shot him to the dizzying heights that he now occupies were Knights of the Forty Islands