Михаил Елизаров

Михаил Елизаров (Mikhail Elizarov) is a modern russian writer, the winner of literary award The Russian Booker Prize (in 2008) for one of his novels “Библиотекарь” (The Librarian). Elizarov is also known as a singer and a songwriter. He was born in 1973, in Ivano-Frankovsk (Ukraine, USSR) and spent his childhood in Kharkov. Mikhail Elizarov still feels sympathy for Soviet Union and thanks this state for giving him feeling of happiness and comfort in his childhood and youth. Elizarov graduated from Kharkov University (language and literature faculty) and also got the musical education (opera vocals class, baritone). He spent some time on active duty in Soviet Army, but because of problems with health he was taken to hospital (it happened at the same time with breakup of USSR) and soon he left the army. In 2001 Mikhail Elizarov realized that Ukraine had no future as an independent state and he emigrated to Germany. In 2001 russian intellectual publishing house Ad Marginum released the book of collected stories “Nogti” (The Nails), which had been written by Elizarov since his age of 19. This book was shocking - it told about russian psychiatric hospital, about oligophrens and lepers, and it had a great success. It was translated and released in Germany. Elizarov explained this success with the fact that European readers simply liked the description of horrors “à la russe”. In 2003 it was released another book of Elizarov – “Pasternak”. This novel was critically disclaimed because of humiliation of the famous russian poet Boris Pasternak, he was described like the incarnation of evil. In 2005 Mikhail Elizarov released the book of collected stories called “Krasnaya Plyonka” (The Red Film), in 2007 – the great novel “Bibliotekar” (The Librarian), which brought him the Russian Booker Prize award in 2008, in 2008 Elizarov released the book “Kubiki” (The Bricks), and in 2010 – “Multiki” (The Cartoons). In 2008 Mikhail Elizarov moved to Moscow as Europe didn’t suit him because of its hostility towards all russian and because of Europe's boredom. Mikhail Elizarov is married, he has a daughter. He hates glamour and adores the depths of Russia. He has the collecting of cold steel as a hobby, he knows a lot about it and usually uses this knowledge while writing his stories. More information is avaliable in Elizarov's community at LJ: http://community.livejournal.com/ru_elizarov Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.