Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its émigrés, and to Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different ethnic origins, including bilingual writers, such as Kyrgyz novelist Chinghiz Aitmatov. At the same time, Russian-language literature does not include works by authors from the Russian Federation who write exclusively or primarily in the native languages of the indigenous non-Russian ethnic groups in Russia, thus the famous Dagestani poet Rasul Gamzatov is omitted.
Paul Celan, born Paul Antschel, was a Romanian-born French poet, Holocaust survivor, and literary translator. Celan is regarded as one of the most important figures in German-language literature of the post-World War II era and a poet whose verse has gained an immortal place in the literary pantheon. Celan’s poetry, with its many radical poetic and linguistic innovations, is characterized by a complicated and cryptic style that deviates from poetic conventions.
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad in the Soviet Union, Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in the United States with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. He taught thereafter at Mount Holyoke College, and at universities including Yale, Columbia, Cambridge, and Michigan. Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity". He was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991.
Andrei Platonovich Platonov was a Soviet Russian novelist, short story writer, philosopher, playwright, and poet. Although Platonov regarded himself as a communist, his principal works remained unpublished in his lifetime because of their skeptical attitude toward collectivization of agriculture (1929–1940) and other Stalinist policies, as well as for their experimental, avant-garde form infused with existentialism which was not in line with the dominant socialist realism doctrine. His famous works include the novels Chevengur (1928) and The Foundation Pit (1930).
Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely, was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. His novel Petersburg (1913/1922) was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as the third-greatest masterpiece of modernist literature. The Andrei Bely Prize, one of the most important prizes in Russian literature, was named after him. His poems were set to music and performed by Russian singer-songwriters.
Yang Lian is a Swiss-Chinese poet associated with the Misty Poets and also with the Searching for Roots school. He was born in Bern, Switzerland, in 1955 and was raised in Beijing, China. where he attended primary school.
Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich was an influential Russian poet and literary critic who presided over the Berlin circle of Russian emigre litterateurs.
Leslie Allan Murray was an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spanned over 40 years and he published nearly 30 volumes of poetry as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings.
Dmitry Vladimirovich Kuzmin, is a Russian poet, critic, and publisher.
Bernard O'Donoghue FRSL is a contemporary Irish poet and academic.
Igor Georgievich Vishnevetsky is a Russian-born poet, novelist, screenwriter, and editor. He has been a contributor and editor in numerous literary journals, anthologies, and scholarly periodicals since the 1980s. Some of his work has been published in English, including a translated version of his first novel, Leningrad (2010).
Arkadii Trofimovich Dragomoshchenko was a Russian poet, writer, translator, and lecturer. He is considered the foremost representative of language poetry in contemporary Russian literature.
David McDuff is a Scottish translator, editor and literary critic.
Anatoly Kudryavitsky is a Russian-Irish novelist, poet, editor and literary translator.
Maxim D. Shrayer is a bilingual Russian-American author, translator, and literary scholar, and a professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College.
Valéry Votrin is a Belgian fiction writer of Russian origin. He writes in Russian and English.
Alexandra Gennadievna Petrova is a Russian poet and writer. She graduated from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Tartu. She lived in Jerusalem Israel from 1993 to 1998 and has lived in Rome since 1998. She was a finalist for the Andrei Bely Prize in 1999 and in 2008 and a Laureate of the Prize in 2016 for her novel Appendix.
Lev Semyonovich Rubinstein was a Russian essayist, journalist, poet, and social activist. He was a founder and member of Moscow Conceptualism.
AleksandrVadimovich Skidan is an author of Russian poetry and a translator of both American poetry and American and European literary theory. Skidan is known as one of Russia's most notable contemporary poets.
Anastasia Valerievna Afanasieva is a Ukrainian physician as well as a Russian-speaking poet, writer, and translator.
