Grigori Chkhartishvili (გრიგორი ჩხარტიშვილი), better known by his pen name Boris Akunin (, born 20 May 1956), is a Georgian-Russian writer residing in the United Kingdom. He is best known as a writer of historical fiction, specifically his Erast Fandorin detective novels. He is also an essayist and literary translator. Grigory Chkhartishvili has also written under pen names Anatoly Brusnikin, Anna Borisova, and Akunin-Chkhartishvili. His characters include Erast Fandorin, Nicholas Fandorin and Sister Pelagia.

Early life

Chkhartishvili was born on 20 May 1956 in Zestaponi to a Georgian father and a Jewish mother. He moved to Moscow in 1958.

Career

Chkhartishvili worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature, but left in October 2000 to pursue a career as a fiction writer. Influenced by Japanese kabuki theatre, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moscow State University as an expert on Japan. He was engaged in literary translation from Japanese and English. Japanese authors Yukio Mishima, Kenji Maruyama, Yasushi Inoue, Masahiko Shimada, Kobo Abe, Shinichi Hoshi, Takeshi Kaiko, Shohei Ooka were published in his translation, as well as representatives of American and English literature (T. C. Boyle, Malcolm Bradbury, Peter Ustinov, etc.). Under his given name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, he was editor-in-chief of the 20-volume Anthology of Japanese Literature, chairman of the board of a large "Pushkin Library”, and is the author of the book The Writer and Suicide (Moscow, The New Literary Review, 1999). He has also contributed literary criticism and translations from Japanese, American, and English literature under his own name. He publishes other critical and documentary works under his real name. Since 1998 he has been writing fiction under the pseudonym “B. Akunin", decoding "B" as "Boris". "Akunin" (悪人) is a Japanese word that translates to "great bad man". In his novel The Diamond Chariot, the author redefines an "akunin" as a great evil man who creates his own rules. Under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, he has written many works of fiction, mainly novels and stories in the series The Adventures of Erast Fandorin, The Adventures of Sister Pelagia, The Adventures of the Master (following Nicholas Fandorin, Erast's grandson), all published in Russia by Zakharov Books, and the Roman-Kino ("Novel-Film") series set during World War I. Akunin's specialty is historical mysteries set in Imperial Russia. It was only after the first books of the Fandorin series were published to critical acclaim that the identity of B. Akunin (i.e., Chkhartishvili) was revealed. Akunin lived in Moscow until 2014. He has since lived in Britain, France, and Spain. he is living in London.

Recognition

Chkhartishvili has been called by Igor Pomerantsev the "undisputed champion" of Russian crime fiction, given that as Boris Akunin he "has written more than a dozen crime novels and has been widely appreciated by discerning readers ... and has been translated into many languages."

Political views

Akunin has been critical of Vladimir Putin's domestic and foreign policies since the invasion of Georgia and the annexation of Crimea. Akunin participated in a fundraiser in 2022 to benefit Russians accused of "discrediting" the Russian army under the Russian 2022 war censorship laws. In December 2023, the pranksters Vovan and Lexus called Akunin and Dmitry Bykov, pretending to be representatives of the Ukrainian Government, and released the recordings of Akunin and Bykov expressing their support for Ukraine. The response in Russia was negative: many Russian publishing booksellers, including publishing company AST, ceased publication and distribution of Akunin's and Bykov's works. One of the few booksellers that continued to distribute Akunin's books, Zakharov Books, came under investigation by the Investigative Committee of Russia. Russian politician Andrey Gurulyov called Akunin an "enemy" that "must be destroyed". Akunin was then added by Rosfinmonitoring to its list of terrorists and extremists, with Akunin specifically believed to be complicit in terrorist activity by the Russian Government. The government also opened a criminal case against Akunin, with allegations of discreditation of the Russian army. In response, Akunin wrote on Facebook: "Terrorists declared me a terrorist." In an article on his website, Akunin has warned Russians abroad to not return to Russia. In January 2024, Akunin was designated a "foreign agent" by the Russian Ministry of Justice. This designation requires that the subject identify themselves as a "foreign agent" on social media and any other publications, and imposes heavy financial reporting requirements. Later that month, Russia's Interior Ministry put his name on a wanted list for alleged criminal activity. On 6 February 2024, a Moscow court ordered the arrest of Akunin in absentia. After the death of Alexei Navalny, Akunin said that "There is nothing more the dictator [Putin] can do to Navalny. Navalny is dead and has become immortal." In June 2024, the online library of Boris Akunin was blocked in Russia due to the library's distribution of Vladimir Sorokin's book The Heritage.

Awards and honors

In the year 2000, Akunin was nominated for the Smirnoff-Booker Prize. In September 2000, Akunin was named Russian Writer of the Year and won the "Antibooker" prize 2000 for his Erast Fandorin novel Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs. In 2003, the British Crime Writers' Association placed Akunin's novel The Winter Queen on the short list for the Dagger Award in Fiction. In 2004, he was a member of the jury at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival. On 10 August 2009, for the contribution to the development of cultural ties between Russia and Japan, he was awarded the prize of the Japan Foundation acting under the auspices of the government. Laureate of the Noma Prize (2007, Kodansha Publishing House, Japan) - "For the best translation from Japanese of works of the writer Yukio Mishima".

Adaptations

Two Fandorin novels, The Turkish Gambit and The State Counsellor, were made into big-budget Russian movies. Azazel was adapted twice for television, first as The Winter Queen, and later as Fandorin. Azazel, produced by Yandex Studios and Kinopoisk streaming service. An English remake of The Winter Queen was in production. It was set to start filming in 2007, but the leading actress, Milla Jovovich, became pregnant, and the production process was delayed to unknown date. Pelagia and the White Bulldog was made into a TV mini-series in 2009, while The Spy Novel came out in a 2012 theatrical release as Spy.

List of works

Note: (The Jack of Spades and The Decorator were published together in a single volume, Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin / Особые поручения.

Anatoly Brusnikin

In November 2007, AST, one of the publishing houses with which Akunin is affiliated, came out with a historical mystery novel by a new author, Anatoly Brusnikin, called Девятный спас (Devyatny Spas, The Ninth Savior). Despite the fact that Brusnikin was a complete unknown, AST spent lavishly on an advertising campaign for the book, which almost immediately resulted in rumors that Brusnikin might actually be Akunin in a new disguise. The rumors about the authorship of Devyatny Spas were also fueled by the total secrecy surrounding the person of the author and the fact that his name, A. O. Brusnikin, is an exact anagram of Boris Akunin. AST has also released a photograph of Brusnikin, which greatly resembled Chkhartishvili's face. In January 2012, two years after the second Brusnikin novel was published and just prior to the release of the third one, Chkhartishvili admitted in his blog that it was indeed him hiding under a new nom-de-plume. The reason for creating another alter ego was Akunin's desire to write historical novels without a mystery component and to attempt a "Slavophile" look at Russian history in lieu of his usual "Westerner" outlook. The Brusnikin "photograph" was revealed to be a combination of Chkhartishvili's face with the face of a studio designer who made the picture. To date, three Brusnikin novels have been written. Akunin has said he has no definite plans to write more Brusnikin novels, though he remains open to the possibility.

Anna Borisova

At about the same time as Brusnikin had made his appearance, Chkhartishvili's other disguise, Anna Borisova, hit the bookstores relatively undetected. In this literary experiment Chkhartishvili wanted to attempt to write as a woman and to get away from detective and adventure fiction. Similar to the Brusnikin ruse, the "photograph" of Borisova released by the publisher was actually a combination of Chkhartishvili's face with that of his wife. Borisova's work, though not overly complicated, is more literary and philosophical in nature. There were three Borisova novels written. Akunin has said that he will not write any more Borisova novels "unless I get a sex-change (surgery)."