Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov (; August 20, 1932 – July 6, 2009) was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He became known in the West as the author of The Burn (Ожог, Ozhog, from 1975) and of Generations of Winter (Московская сага, Moskovskaya Saga, from 1992), a family saga following three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.

Early life and education

Vasily Aksyonov was born to Pavel Aksyonov and Yevgenia Ginzburg in Kazan, USSR on August 20, 1932. His mother, Yevgenia Ginzburg, was a successful journalist and educator and his father, Pavel Aksyonov, had a high position in the administration of Kazan. Both parents "were prominent communists." Vasily's half-brother Alexei (from Ginzburg's first marriage to Dmitriy Fedorov) died from starvation in besieged Leningrad in 1941.

In the 1960s Aksyonov was a frequent contributor to the popular Yunost ("Youth") magazine and eventually became a staff writer. Aksyonov thus reportedly became "a leading figure in the so-called "youth prose" movement and a darling of the Soviet liberal intelligentsia and their western supporters: his writings stood in marked contrast to the dreary, socialist-realist prose of the time." "Aksyonov's characters spoke in a natural way, using hip lingo, they went to bars and dance halls, had premarital sex, listened to jazz and rock'n'roll and hustled to score a pair of cool American shoes." "Soon afterwards, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship, regaining it only 10 years later during Gorbachev's perestroika." "He [also] taught literature at a number of [other] American universities, including USC and Goucher College in Maryland... [and] worked as a journalist for Radio Liberty."

"He continued to write novels, among which was the ambitious Generations of Winter (1994), a multi-generational saga of Soviet life that became a successful Russian TV mini-series." He was reportedly "forever a hipster [and] was used to being in the avant garde, be it in fashion or literary innovation."

Novels

His other novels include:

  • Colleagues ("Коллеги" – Kollegi, 1960)
  • Ticket to the Stars ("Звёздный билет" – Zvyozdny bilet, 1961)
  • Oranges from Morocco ("Апельсины из Марокко" – Apel'siny iz Marokko, 1963)
  • It's Time, My Friend, It's Time ("Пора, мой друг, пора" – Pora, moy drug, pora, 1964)
  • It's a Pity You Weren't with Us ("Жаль, что вас не было с нами" – Zhal', chto vas ne bylo s nami, 1965)
  • "Half-way To The Moon" ("На полпути к Луне", 1966)
  • Overstocked Packaging Barrels ("Затоваренная бочкотара" – Zatovarennaya bochkotara, 1968)
  • "My Grandfather Is A Monument" ("Мой дедушка – памятник", 1970)
  • "Love for Electricity" ("Любовь к электричеству", 1971)
  • In Search of a Genre ("В поисках жанра" – V poiskakh zhanra, 1972)
  • "Our Golden Piece Of Metal ("Золотая наша Железка", 1973)
  • "The Burn" ("Ожог", 1975)
  • Translation of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime into Russian (1976)