Alexey Ivanov is one of the most vivid Russian writers of the 21st century. He turned to be in top three of the most demanded authors in Moscow libraries according to statistics of 2015. As the critic Lev Danilkin put it, "Ivanov is gold and forex reserves of Russian literature". 
Alexey Viktorovich Ivanov was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1969, and then moved to Perm. His parents were shipbuilding engineers but he entered the Journalism Faculty of the Ural University in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). He quit soon and later graduated from the Faculty of Art Criticism and Cultural Science of the same university.
Alexey Ivanonv started writing as a schoolboy yet. According to him, he wrote that which he would personally want to read - fantasy fiction. His writings came to be published in local little-known magazines in his student years. His debut publication was the fantastic story Hunting the Big Dipper in the  magazine Ural Pathfinder  (Sverdlovsk) in 1990. After returning to Perm, Alexey Ivanov went through numerous professions: he worked as a watchman, a school teacher, a journalist, a university professor, and a travel guide in a tourist agency. The latter job brought about his passionate studies of the local lore.
Alexey Ivanov returned to literature and gained fame with his Heart of Parma (2003), a historical legend novel about the conquest of Great Perm by Moscow in the 15th century. Blossomed from the author's keen interest in local history, it made the beginning writer very popular. The book ran into several reeditions. In the course of work on this novel the writer organized children's art museum of local lore. At the initiative of the writer and based on his novel the ethnofuturistic festival  Heart of Parma was held in the Perm Territory from 2006 to 2009.
Alexey Ivanov is presently a famous writer and the winner of several All-Russian literary awards, such as, for example, Mamin-Sibiryak Award and Pavel Bazhov Award, as well as the Marble Faun and The Start. Alexey Ivanov's books were nominated for The National Best-Seller three times.
The year 2010 saw the release of The Ridge of Russia written by Alexey Ivanov on the history of the Urals. He sold the right for screening his successful novels Revolt Gold, Dorm-on-Blood and The Heart of Parma.
One of his most famous books, The Geographer Drank his Globe Away became the basis for the same name film. Directed by Alexander Veledinsky and starring Konstantin Khabensky, it was released in 2012. The film premiered at the 24th Kinotavr Film Festival in Sochi and won the Grand Prix and some other prizes.