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Fazil Iskander

Biography

Fazil Iskander was born in 1929 in Sukumi, then in the Soviet Union and now in Abkhazia (a country which considers itself independent but is considered part of Georgia by most of the world’s governments.) His father was imprisoned and deported to Iran in 1957, where he died. After high school, he studied librarianship in Moscow. He worked as a journalist in various provincial cities. He initially wrote poetry but soon moved to the short story and then the novel and was recognised as one of the promising Soviet prose writers of the 1960s and 1970s. His stories were often based in Abkhazia and were generally humorous and satirical. He is best-known in the English-speaking world for Сандро из Чегема (Sandro of Chegem), which tells the story of an Abkhazian in a series of stories from all parts of his life in the same gentle mocking and humorous ways of his stories. Iskander has not become involved in the disputes involving Abkhazia and has remained living in Moscow, where he has lived for a long time. He died in 2016.

Other links

Fazil Iskander
Favorite Russian (sic) Writers A to Я: Fazil Iskander
Interview
Selected short fiction (texts)
Forbidden Fruit and Other Stories (stories by Iskander)
Фазиль Искандер (in Russian)
Искандер Фазиль (in Russian)
Texts of his works (in Russian)

Bibliography

1957 Горные тропы (poetry)
1959 Доброта земли (poetry)
1960 Зеленый дождь (poetry)
1961 Дети Черноморья (poetry)
1964 Молодость моря (poetry)
1966 Запретный плод (Forbidden Fruit and Other Stories) (stories)
1966 Зори земли (poetry)
1966 Тринадцатый подвиг Геракла (The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules) (stories)
1966 Созвездие Козлотура (The Goatibex Constellation) (novel)
1969 Летний лес (poetry)
1969 Три рассказа (stories)
1970 Дерево детства (stories)
1972 Первое дело (stories)
1973 Время счастливых находок (stories)
1977 Сандро из Чегема (Sandro of Chegem) (novel)
1978 Начало (stories)
1979 Кролики и удавы (Rabbits and Boa Constrictors) (novel)
1981 Новые главы, Сандро из Чегема (The Gospel According to Chegem) (novel)
1983 Детство Чика (Chik and His Friends) (stories)
1986 Защита Чика: рассказы и повести (stories)
1986 Праздник ожидания праздника рассказы (stories)
1987 Путь (The Old House under the Cypress Tree) (poetry)
1988 Кофейня в море (drama)
1989 Повести, рассказы (stories)
1990 Стоянка человека (stories)
1993 Пшада (novella)
1995 Человек и его окрестности (stories)
1997 Софичка (novella & stories)
1999 Ласточкино гнездо (stories & poetry)
1999 Рассказы. Повесть. Сказка. Диалог. Эссе. Стихи (stories, poetry, essays)
2003 Путь из варяг в греки (stories)
2004 Козы и Шекспир; (stories)
2010 Золото Вильгельма: повести, рассказы (stories)