Anatoly Kuznetsov

Anatoly Vasilievich Kuznetsov (; 18 August 1929, Kiev, USSR – 13 June 1979, London) was a Russian-language Soviet writer who described his experiences in German-occupied Kiev during World War II in his internationally acclaimed novel Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel. The book was originally published in a censored form in 1966 in the Russian language. Career in the USSR Kuznetsov was born to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother, his passport stated that he was Russian. He grew up in the Kiev district of Kurenivka, in his own words "a stone's throw from a vast ravine, whose name, Babi Yar, was once known only to locals." At the age fourteen, Kuznetsov began recording in a notebook everything he saw as a witness and heard about the Babi Yar massacre. Once his mother discovered and read his notes. She cried and advised him to save them for a book he might write someday. Before becoming a writer, Kuznetsov experimented with ballet, acting, art, and music, found employment as a carpenter and labourer, and worked on the Kakhovka, Irkutsk, and Bratsk hydroelectric power plants. In 1955, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Eventually, he began "studying to become a writer" and enrolled at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. In 1957, literary magazine Yunost featured his novella entitled Sequel to a Legend. Kuznetsov described his first experience with publishers as follows: