BORIS AKUNIN

Boris Akunin (Grigory Chkhartishvili), the most popular contemporary Russian writer of Georgian origin, specialist in literature and Japanese, translator and public figure was born in 1956, in Zestafoni District in Western Georgia. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Russia and settled down in Moscow, where the writer grew up. He graduated from the University of Russia, the faculty of history and philology and received a diploma of a historian and Japanese language specialist. He is also a translator of literary works from English and Japanese languages. His different essays (for instance, The Writer and Suicide, 1999), as well as works of historical genre (for instance, The History of Russian State since 2013) have been published.

The first fiction by Boris Akunin was published in 1998. He won acclaim thanks to the series of historical and detective novels about Erast Fandorin. His novels have been translated in many languages. Grigol Chkhartishvili has been an emigrant since 2014.