Boris Akunin

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Boris Akunin (or Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili)

Boris Akunin
Born	May 20, 1956 Tbilisi, Georgia

Boris Akunin (Russian: Борис Акунин) is the pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili (Григорий Шалвович Чхартишвили), born May 20, 1956, a Russian essayist, literary translator, and fiction writer. He was born in Tbilisi into a Georgian family, and since 1958 has lived in Moscow. "Akunin" (悪人) is a Japanese word that translates loosely to "villain". In his novel "Diamond Chariot", the author defines an "akunin" further as one who creates his own rules. The pseudonym "B. Akunin" also alludes to the anarchist Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin and to Akuna, Anna Akhmatova's home name.

Influenced by Japanese Kabuki theatre, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of the countries of Asia and Africa of Moscow State University and became a Japanologist. He worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature, however at the beginning of October 2000 left there to work in fiction.

As Grigory Chkhartishvili, he is editor-in-chief of the 20-volume "Anthology of the Japanese literature", chairman of the board of a megaproject "Pushkin library " (Soros Fund), and the author of the book "The Writer and Suicide" (Moscow, The New literary Review, 1999), literary - critiques, translations from Japanese, American and English literature. Under a pseudonym Boris Akunin he wrote several works of fiction, mainly novels and stories in the following series: "Adventures of Erast Fandorin", "The Adventures of sister Pelagia" and "The Adventures of the master". Akunin's specialty is historical mysteries set in the Imperial Russia. It was only after the first books of the Fandorin series were published to a lot of critical acclaim that the identity of B. Akunin (i.e., Chkhartishvili) was revealed.

In 2000 Boris Akunin was nominated for the Smirnoff-Booker prize. In September of 2000, Akunin was named the Russian Writer of the Year and was the winner of the literary prize "Antibooker" for 2000 for the novel Crowning or Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs.

Erast Fandorin books have been published in Italy, France, Japan, USA, Poland, Germany and in other countries.

In late 2003 The British Crime Writers' Association announced its short lists for its Dagger Awards 2003. Boris Akunin's The Winter Queen was shortlisted in the category Gold & Silver Daggers for Fiction.

Two of Fandorin novels, Turkish Gambit and The State Councillor, were made into big-budget movies which broke Russian box-office records in 2005.

[edit] Works

Comedy/Tragedy (the Tragedy is also known as "Hamlet, by B. Akunin," with "Mirror of Saint Germain" being th alternate name for the Comedy.)
Pelagiya
- Pelagiya and the White Bulldog / Пелагия и белый бульдог [1]
- Pelagiya and the Black Monk / Пелагия и черный монах
- Pelagiya and the Red Rooster / Пелагия и красный петух
Fairy Tales for Idiots / Сказки для Идиотов [2]
The Seagull / Чайка, Комедия в двух действиях: a reworking of Anton Chekhov's Seagull as a mystery [3]
Erast Fandorin - (dates are for the setting of the narrative not pub. dates)
1. The Winter Queen, original title Azazel / Азазель (1876, translated as ) [4]
2. The Turkish Gambit / Турецкий гамбит (1877) [5]: The story is set before the backdrop of the Russo-Turkish War, in particular the Siege of Pleven.
3. Murder on the Leviathan / Левиафан (1878) [6]
4. The Death of Achilles / Смерть Ахиллеса (1882) [7]: The story unwinds from the death of Mikhail Skobelev (called Sobolev in the novel) in a Moscow hotel.
5. The Jack of Spades / Пиковый валет (1886) [8]
6. The Decorator / Декоратор (1889, also translated as The Set Designer) [9]: Jack the Ripper in Moscow
7. State Councillor / Статский советник (1891)
8. Coronation, or the Last of the Romanovs / Коронация, или Последний из романов (1896): Surrounding the ascension of tsar Nicholas II
9. The Mistress of Death / Любовница смерти (1900)
10. The Lover of death / Любовник смерти (1900)
11. The Diamond Chariot / Алмазная колесница
12. The Jade Rosary / Нефритовые четки
Nicholas Fandorin
- Altyn Tolobas / Алтын-толобас [10]
- Out-of-school reading/ Внеклассное чтение
- F.M. (book)