Mikhail Kuraev is a contemporary writer whose prose and articles have appeared in major journals since the late 1980s. His ability to craft a tale in which a broad historical canvas serves as the background for a focus on individual life, as well as on his modernist attitude toward time and space, has brought him recognition as a talented writer of Russian life in the post-Soviet years. Although his most recent work has not generated the same excitement as his first novellas, Kuraev's prose and essays continue to draw critical notice.

Mikhail Nikolaevich Kuraev was born in Leningrad on 18 June 1939 into a family of engineers. In February 1942 he was evacuated with his mother, Anna Petrovna Kuraeva, and older brother, Sergei, from Leningrad during its siege; his younger brother, Boris, had died shortly before. Kuraev returned to Leningrad in 1954 after living for some years in the polar regions (Zapoliar'e...