Daniil Granin published his first story in 1949 and became a professional writer in 1950. He rose to prominence during the period of the Soviet cultural Thaw in the 1950s, but his stories and novels of the post-Thaw period brought him fame. He continues to be productive in post-Soviet Russia.

Granin was born Daniil Aleksandrovich German on 1 January 1918 in Volyn in the Kursk region to Aleksandr Danilovich German, a forestry warden, and Anna Bakirovna German. He spent his childhood in the Novgorod and Pskov regions; in the 1920s the family moved to Leningrad, where Daniil German attended the secondary school formerly called the Tenishev School; among his teachers were famous professors who had taught at the school before 1917. In the 1930s Aleksandr German was arrested and sent to Siberia, and Anna German began working as a dressmaker. On his return from the camps Aleksandr German was not allowed to live...