A historian of late-medieval Russia by training Vladimir Sharov, born in 1952, first turned to fiction in the late 1970s. It was not until the 1990s, however, that his extraordinarily imaginative and daring novels come to the attention of the public. When they did, they caused acrimony and controversy.
Before and During in 2014 was his first novel to appear in English, which will be followed in January 2018 by The Rehearsals, both translated by Oliver Ready. He has won all the major Russian literary prizes including the Booker Prize in 2014. Before and During won The Read Russia Prize in 2015.
