Georgii Vladimov belonged to the 1960s generation of writers, which also included his close friends Vladimir Nikolaevich Voinovich and Vassily Aksyonov. The first generation to begin their careers after the death of the dictator Joseph Stalin, they brought to Russian literature new themes and intonations and a critical attitude to official ideology that made them outcasts during the Leonid Brezhnev period. Vladimov was a critic and an editor before beginning to write his own fiction; he also played a direct role in dissident affairs and human-rights activities. The two prizes he received reflect these two aspects of his career: in 1995 he was awarded the Russian Booker Prize for his novel General i ego armiia (1997, The General and His Army), first published in incomplete form in the magazine Znamia (The Banner) in 1994, and in 2001 he received the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Civic Courage for his activities in defense of...