Russia was made the Market Focus of the London Book Fair 2011 in recognition of Russia’s rapid growth in the publishing field in the past two decades and following the success of the Russian Pavilion and Russian Literature Week, held in conjunction with The London Book Fair and in the presence of Minister Mikhail V. Seslavinsky and His Excellency Ambassador Yury V. Fedotov.

Previously unknown to readers of fiction, Vodolazkin was catapulted to prominence by his debut novel Solovyov and Larionov, which was not only very popular with readers, but was also rewarded with a place on the shortlist for both the Andrei Bely Prize (2009) and the Big Book Award (2010).

Mikhail Veller was born in 1948. He graduated with a degree in philology from Leningrad University in 1972. After university he worked in many different areas, including working as a logger in the taiga, a hunter, a shepherd, a teacher and a journalist. In recent years he has delivered lectures on modern Russian literature at the universities of Milan, Jerusalem and Copenhagen.

Tatiana Ustinova was born in Moscow, a scion of a dynasty of aviation engineers. Having trained in the family trade, she then decided to work as an editor for the National State Television company of Russia. In 1993 she was invited to join President Yeltsin’s press office, also working at the press office of the Chamber of Commerce. Currently Ustinova is the presenter of three television shows and hosts two radio programmes.

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.

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’.

A historian of medieval Russia by training, Vladimir Sharov , born 1952, began writing fiction in the late 1970s, echoing his father's own move from genetics to writing in the 1960s. Nevertheless, it was not until the 1990s that Sharov's highly unusual historical-philosophical novels came to the attention of the public. When they did, they caused genuine acrimony and controversy among the editors of influential literary journals, especially Novyi Mir.

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.

The author of widely acclaimed novels, Shishkin is admired as a refined stylist whose fiction engages Russian and European literary traditions and forges an equally expansive vision for the future of literature. Born January 18, 1961 in Moscow, Shishkin worked as a school teacher and journalist. His writing debut in 1993, the short story Calligraphy Lesson, was named Best Debut of the Year by the literary journal Znamya.

German Sadulaev was born in 1973, in the town of Shali, in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, to a Chechen father and Terek Cossack mother. In 1989, aged sixteen, he left Chechnya to study law at Leningrad State University. Today he lives and works as a lawyer in St Petersburg. German Sadulaev’s first book, Radio FUCK, told the urban tales of thirty-somethings in St Petersburg. It made no mention of Chechnya.

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.

Zakhar Prilepin was born near Ryazan in 1975. Prilepin had a varied life before dedicating himself to writing, spending time as a student, as a labourer, as a journalist and as a soldier, serving with the Special Forces in Chechnya. More recently Prilepin has come to the public attention not only as one of the best writers of his generation, but as a committed, and often controversial, political activist on behalf of the ‘Other Russia’ coalition. Prilepin lives in Nizhny Novgorod where he is the regional editor of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Makanin’s route to his current position as one of the acknowledged masters of contemporary Russian prose is not only a representative tale of the history of Russian literature in the twentieth century, but also a testament to the depth of his talent. Born in 1937 in Orsk, a town straddling the boundary between Europe and Asia, the young Makanin was a chess fanatic. This passion led him to study maths in Moscow, where for many years he worked as a teacher and where he still lives.

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 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.

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.

Mikhail Elizarov was born in 1973 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. He graduated from Kharkov State University, with a degree in philology. Simultaneously with his studies, he studied vocal at Higher Musical School. Until 1999 he was a student at the Kharkov Arts Academy, studying film directing. He continued his film studies in Berlin, Germany.

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.

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.

A historian of medieval Russia by training, Vladimir Sharov (b. 1952) is the son of a geneticist who turned to writing prose, for children and adults, in the 1960s. Sharov himself began writing fiction in the late 1970s, but it was not until the 1990s that his highly unusual historiosophical novels came before the public gaze.

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

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.

21 - 29 January
The Moscow-based Sovremennik Theatre is bringing three of their acclaimed productions to London for the first time. Into the Whirlwind, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, directed by Galina Volchek, will be performed in Russian with English surtitles.