Oleg Pavlov
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Oleg Olegovich Pavlov (Russian:Павлов, Олег Олегович) (born 1970) is a Russian writer, winner of the Russian Booker Prize.
He was born in Moscow, served in the Interior Ministry troops near the city of Karaganda in Kazakhstan. The many events that Pavlov portrays in his stories and novels were inspired by the experience he had during his service as a prison camp guard.
During his service, Pavlov had a head injury, was hospitalised, and spent over a month in a psychiatric ward. This allowed him to be released from the army before the end of the mandatory two-year military service.
Oleg Pavlov studied in the Literature Institute in Moscow.
He was only 24 years old when his first novel, "Official Tale" (Kazennaya skazka), was published by the popular "Novy Mir" Russian monthly literary magazine. He was immediately noticed by the critics, as well as by the Russian Booker Prize jury, which short-listed the novel for the 1995 prize.
His next novel "Matyushin's Case" (1997) confirmed Oleg Pavlov's reputation as a writer who works within the great Russian literary tradition of sympathy and compassion toward the "poor people". In this book, he speaks about the everyday life in the Russian army, which looks more like the prison camp, and the nearby prison zone that they guard.
Pavlov received the Russian Booker Prize in 2002 for his book "Ninth Day Party in Karaganda: or the Story of the Recent Days" (Karagandinskiye deviatiny).
Pavlov is also the author of articles on literature, historical and social aspects of life in Russia, as well as numerous essays.
