Aleksandr Skorobogatov

Aleksandr Skorobogatov is a Belarusian novelist known for his works in the literary fiction genre. An heir to Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Pelevin, and Sorokin — the surreal line of the Russian literary canon — his novels have been published to great acclaim in Russian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Greek, Serbian and Spanish.

Aleksandr Skorobogatov was born in 1963 in Grodno, a small town in Belarus near the Polish border. He studied drama and film at the Belarusian State Institute for Theatre and Art in Minsk, theology at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, and graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow.

Skorobogatov decided to become a writer at the age of 18–19 while still at the theater institute. He left the institute to dedicate himself fully to literature, despite the challenges of getting published during the late Soviet era. "I believed my texts would be published despite Belarus having only one state-owned publishing house and literary magazine," he said.

His early works faced rejection for being ideologically unacceptable and politically incorrect. An editor suggested changing his style and views, but Skorobogatov never planned to heed this advice. He worked various jobs to support his writing, including a stint at a circus and later as a night security guard at a children’s crèche.

Skorobogatov’s literary career began to take shape when he became a student at the Gorky Literary Institute, known for its liberal approach to education. In 1989, his short story The Executioner was published in Yunost magazine, marking the official start of his literary career.

His first novel, Russian Gothic, faced censorship challenges but eventually won the Best Novel of the Year award from Yunost magazine in 1991. It was later awarded the International Literary Award Città di Penne in 2012. Despite censorship issues with the French and Italian translations, Russian Gothic received stellar international reviews.

His subsequent novels, including Earth Without Water (2002) and Portrait of an Unknown Girl (2015), continued to receive critical acclaim. Earth Without Water was praised for its dramatic and sharp prose, while Portrait of an Unknown Girl was described as a touching and melancholy novel dedicated to his son Vladimir.

In 2002, Skorobogatov faced a personal tragedy with the kidnapping and murder of his son Vladimir. This event deeply impacted him and influenced his writing. Grief led him to begin working on Portrait of an Unknown Girl. In 2008, the novel was published to rave reviews for its depiction of first love in the Soviet Union.

His later works, such as Cocaine (2017) and The Raccoon (2020), continued to push literary boundaries. Cocaine was noted for its surreal and darkly absurd narrative.

Aleksandr Skorobogatov lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.

Photo credit: www.skorobogatov.com