Background
Chkhartishvili was born in Zestafoni to a Georgian father and Jewish mother, and since 1958 has lived in Moskow.
His first wife was Japanese. Now he is married to his editor Erica. They had no children.
dramatist essayist translator writer detective writer
Chkhartishvili was born in Zestafoni to a Georgian father and Jewish mother, and since 1958 has lived in Moskow.
His first wife was Japanese. Now he is married to his editor Erica. They had no children.
In the childhood he read his first book about Japanese Samurais, and this book made such an impression on him that he had a special relation to Japan.
Grigory Chkhartishvili never understood the exact sciences and the study of languages was given to him easily, that's why he chose this institute.
Influenced by Japanese kabuki theatre, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moskow State University as an expert on Japan. He worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature, but left in October 2000 to pursue a career as a fiction writer.
Under his given name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, he serves as editor-in-chief of the 20-volume Anthology of Japanese Literature, chairman of the board of a large "Pushkin Library ", and is the author of the book The Writer and Suicide (Moscow, The New Literary Review, 1999). He has also contributed literary criticism and translations from Japanies, American, English literature under his own name.
Under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, he has written many works of fiction, mainly novels and stories in the series The Adventures of Erast Fandorin, The Adventures of Sister Pelagia, The Adventures of the Master (following Nicholas Fandorin, Erast's grandson), all published in Russia by Zakharov Books, and the Roman-Kino ("Novel-Film") series set during World War I. Akunin's specialty is historical mysteries set in Imperial Russia. It was only after the first books of the Fandorin series were published to critical acclaim that the identity of B. Akunin (i.e., Chkhartishvili) was revealed.
"Akunin" (悪人) is a Japanese word that translates loosely to "villain". In his novel The Diamond Chariot, the author redefines an "akunin" as one who creates his own rules. The pseudonym "B. Akunin" may also allude to the anarchist Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin and to Akuna, the home name of poet Anna Akhmatova.
New detective (Erast Fandorin's adventure)
Provincial detective (Sister Pelagia series)
Nicholas Fandorin series
The Genres Project
Brüderschaft with Death
The Seagull (2000)
Comedy/Tragedy (2000)
Fairy Tales for Idiots (2000)
Yin and Yang (2006)
Screenplays (2006)
Love for history (2011)
Photo As a Haiku (2011)