User:RUben Begalov/Pável Krusánov

Pavel Vasilyevich Krusanov (Russian: Па́вел Васи́льевич Круса́нов; August 14, 1961, Ленинград) — modern Russian prose writer and journalist. Brother of Russian avant-garde historian Andrey Krusanov.

Biography
Born into a family of employees. He spent part of his childhood in Egypt. Graduated from The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia with a degree in geography and biology.

In the first half of the 1980s, he was an active representative of the musical underground, a member of the Leningrad Rock Club, a member of the Abzats group. In the same years, he participated in the release of the literary samizdat magazine "Gastronomic Saturday". He worked as a puppet theater illuminator, gardener, recording technician, advertising engineer, offset printer. Since 1989, he began working in publishing houses in editorial positions (Vasilyevsky Island, Triton, North-West, Azbuka, Limbus Press, Amphora).

Since 1989, he has been published in official publications (magazines: Rodnik, Zvezda, Russkiy Ryezd, Moskovsky Vestnik, Chernovik, Twilight, Solo, Oktyabr, Comments). Since 1992 - Member of the Union of Writers of St. Petersburg. Laureate of awards: magazine "October" for the novel "Angel's Bite", "Creating the World" (2020). Finalist of literary awards: Northern Palmyra (1996), ABS Prize (2001), National Bestseller (2003, 2006, 2010, 2015), Big Book (2010). Collects Coleoptera. Married, has two sons.

Activity
In 1990, the first book "Where the wreath cannot lie" was published - a novel-parable about the Zotov brothers, carrying their own death. In the initial period of creativity, the influence of William Faulkner, recognized by the author himself, is partly noticeable. First of all, it affects the use of cross-cutting characters, the mosaic construction of the composition, the inextricable interweaving and interpenetration of the past and the present. Subsequently, Krusanov partially revised the novel and released it in 2001 under the new name "The Night Inside".

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Krusanov's creative style has undergone changes - first towards sophisticated postmodern constructions ("Insignia of Distinction", 1995), and then towards alternative realism and mastering the form of the "imperial novel".

In 1996-1997, carried away by the study of the Karelian-Finnish epic, Krusanov translated the Kalevala rune corpus collected by Elias Lönnrot (The Rune Singer; the book was re-released in 2004 under the name Kalevala) in the form of an epic novel. Up to the present time, this transcription is the most complete.

After the release of the novel "The Bite of an Angel", Krusanov gained all-Russian fame, and the author gained a reputation as an "imperial". The book caused a flurry of reviews and opinions, but critics could not come to a definite opinion about either the genre of the novel (it was defined either as "intellectual fantasy", then as "dystopia", then as "alternative history", then as "neomythologism"), nor about its ideological and artistic merits. The characteristic opposition of assessments looked like this: “The Petersburg writer Krusanov wrote the most powerful novel of the 21st century” (Lev Danilkin, Afisha magazine); “Pavel Krusanov and his book “The Bite of an Angel” is the first test of connoisseurs of imperial boots in the field of fine literature” (Dmitry Olshansky, “New Russian Book”). The intermediate result of this dispute was summed up by Playboy magazine: “Pavel Krusanov is such a good writer that various idiots even accuse him of fascism. What usually happens to people who are impeccably creative.” Despite the diversity of opinions, and perhaps because of it, the book went through four editions in a year. His follow-up novel, Bom Bom (2002), received a similar, though more subdued, critical response, which did not stop him from becoming a finalist for the National Bestseller Award (2003). The novel describes the history of the ancient noble family of the Norushkins, who have long been appointed by Providence itself to guard the underground "devil's tower" with the mystical "gnevizov" - the instrument of awakening the Russian rebellion. The method used by Krusanov in the novel was defined by critics as a trap: "This trap is the unexpected weaving of a fantastic thread into the gray canvas of everyday life."

In 2005, the publishing house "Amphora" published the novel "American Hole", which takes place in the near future - 2010-2011. One of the main characters of the novel, Sergei Kuryokhin, who, it turns out, did not die in 1996, but simply, having reached complete perfection in the profession of a musician, decided to start his career from scratch and try his hand at a new field, starts an adventure-provocation, with the goal of involving the United States in the project, thereby destroying the "most mercantile human being"

Over the years, Krusanov worked as a compiler of collections and almanacs "Seven miles to heaven" (1990), "Russian travel" (1993), "Yo" (1996), "Mitki. Chosen" (1999), "The Blue Book of the Alcoholic" (2006).

Family

 * Brother - Andrei Vasilievich Krusanov (1958), Soviet and Russian literary critic, art historian.

Literary awards

 * 2017 - The book "Iron Steam" was included in the long list of the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award

Links

 * Books on abebooks.com
 * Autor's business card on archive.ph