Dmitry Glukhovsky

Dmitry Alekseyevich Glukhovsky (Дми́трий Алексе́евич Глухо́вский, born 12 June 1979) is a Russian author, best known for the science fiction novel Metro 2033 and its sequels. As a journalist, Dmitry Glukhovsky has worked for Euronews, RT in its early years, and others. Aside from his native Moscow, Glukhovsky has also lived in Israel, Germany, and France. He currently lives abroad due to his wanted status and prison sentence in Russia for his criticism of the Russian government and the war in Ukraine.

Personal life and activism
Dmitry Glukhovsky was born and raised in Moscow. His Jewish father Alexei worked as an editor for Gosteleradio, an agency that ran television and radio programming in the USSR, while his Russian mother Larisa worked as a photo editor for TASS agency. He graduated from a school in Arbat District, and having already decided to become a writer, conceived the idea for the post-apocalyptic novel Metro 2033 at the age of 15. At the age of 17, he left Russia to study in Israel and lived there for four and a half years. While living in Israel, he learned Hebrew and earned a university degree in Journalism and International Relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He completed this degree in Hebrew, no differently to native-language Israeli students most of whom were five years older than him. While talking about the experience, he said: "Not that I started feeling myself a Jew, but I definitely started feeling an Israeli."

The writer was married to producer Elena Glukhovskaya, whom he met while working at Russia Today. The couple have two children. On vDud, Glukhovsky revealed he and Elena divorced earlier in 2020.

In 2021, Glukhovsky publicly denounced the arrest of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny and demanded his release in an online video. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Glukhovsky has shown support to Ukraine, including a public statement aired on Arte. On 7 June 2022, Glukhovsky revealed he was placed on the Russian federal wanted list; he wrote on his Telegram channel that he was accused of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces due to a post he made on Instagram. After a Moscow district court ordered Glukhovsky's arrest in absentia, he faces up to 10 or 15 years in prison. The arrest in absentia was issued on 13 May. In October, Glukhovsky was added to the list of foreign agents by the justice ministry. On 7 August 2023, Glukhovsky was handed an 8-year prison sentence.

Career


Glukhovsky began writing Metro 2033 as his first novel at the age of 18, and then published it on his website in 2002, available for all to read for free as an interactive experiment. First published in print form in 2005, the book and its sequels turned into a multimedia franchise including a video game series. Glukhovsky collaborated with Ukrainian game company 4A Games in the development of Metro 2033. While he did not write the game's story, it is based on his novel. While Metro: Last Light is not based on his novel Metro 2034, because the developers felt it was less fit for a game than the original book, Glukhovsky helped to write the story and dialogue for the game. He published his extended version of the game's story in novel form as Metro 2035.

From 2002 to 2007, he worked at the global European media platform Euronews in Lyon, France, after which he returned to Russia and continued his career at the newly-created Russia Today (RT). Over the course of three years he traveled halfway around the world, was a Kremlin pool journalist, visited the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, as well as the North Pole, and covered the 2006 Lebanon War as a war correspondent. He has also worked with the German radio station Deutsche Welle and the British television channel Sky News. From 2007 to 2009, he worked at Radio Mayak.