Vladimir Rybakov

Vladimir Mechislavovich Rybakov (Russian: Влади́мир Мечисла́вович Рыбако́в; born 1947) is a Russian writer.

Vladimir was born to émigré parents in Paris in 1947. He lived in the Soviet Union 1956–1972, including a hitch in the Soviet Army, and returned to the West in 1972, since which time he has been a journalist and a novelist with a historical bent. He spent much of the 1980s in Afghanistan, where, among other things, he interviewed Soviet soldiers captured by the Afghans. He spent 1989–1995 in Moscow and presently lives in Bulgaria, where he recently completed a huge historical novel about Genghis Khan. Currently he is preparing a book on how Eastern and Western civilizations developed. Two of his books, The Afghans, a novella about Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, and Creature, a geopolitical thriller, have been published recently in English (2004 and 2005, respectively), and The Mystery of Genghis Khan is being prepared for publication. Excerpts from and more information about The Afghans and Creature may be found here.

English translations

• The Brand, Hutchinson, 1986.
• The Burden, Hutchinson, 1986.
• The Afghans: A Novella of Soviet Soldiers in Afghanistan, Infinity Publishing, 2004.
• Creature: A French Russian Thriller, Infinity Publishing, 2005.