Brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are notable writers of the 20th century; together they created true masterpieces of sci-fi contributing to the world fame of Russian literature.

Their thought-provoking fiction works that ponder upon serious social, philosophical and psychological issues were translated into dozens of languages and endured over 500 editions abroad. In Russia the authors’ collected works were published three times. Books by the Strugatsky brothers have inspired many other sci-fi writers and their scripts have served as a basis for some notable movies, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (filmed in 1979) after the Roadside Picnic being the most illustrious screen-version.

Releases of new screen-versions, such as Gadkie Lebedi directed by Constantin Lopushansky, and Hard to Be a God for six long years created by Alexei German are near at hand. By 2008 American studio Columbia Pictures promises to come out with its own version of Roadside Picnic. The Strugatsky brothers are laureates of numerous Russian and foreign awards, and astronomers even named small planet № 3054 discovered in 1977 after them (1977 RE7 STRUGATSKIA).

BORIS

Boris Natanovich Strugatsky (born 14.4.1933). Writer, journalist, translator.
 

Boris Strugatsky was born in St. Petersburg where he lives till date. He graduated from the Faculty of mathematics and informatics of the Leningrad State University specializing in star astronomy. Boris worked at Pulkovo observatory. Since 1966 he has been a professional writer. Since 1974 he has been heading a seminar for young sci-fi writers, which has brought up a lot of well-known authors.

At present Boris Strugatsky writes his works under the pen-name S. Vititsky. He also used pseudonyms S. Vitin and S. Pobedin. Together with his brother Boris is a laureate of lots of Russian and foreign literature awards. Boris is chairman and the only member of the jury of the Bronze Snail Award, and chairman of the jury of the ABS-Award (Arkady&Boris Strugatsky Award), the brothers’ memorial award.

References:
www.rusf.ru/abs/
livejournal.com
ru.wikipedia.org

Vera Ivanova and Mikhail Manykin