TEHRAN – Russian author of Iranian origin Fazil Abdulovich Iskander was honored during a ceremony held at the Moscow Public Library on Monday.
Fazil Iskander is the most famous Abkhaz writer, renowned in the former Soviet Union for his vivid descriptions of Caucasian life, mostly written in Russian.
He is known in the English speaking world for “Sandro of Chegem”, a picaresque novel that recounts life in a fictional Abkhaz village from the early years of the 20th century.
The ceremony was arranged to celebrate the 86th birth anniversary of the author (March 6), and was attended by Iran’s Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaii and a number of Russian and Abkhazian officials, the Persian service of IRNA reported on Tuesday.
Sanaii praised Iskander for his valuable works and called his Iranian roots a symbol of cultural cooperation between Iran and Russia.
Born on March 6, 1929 in Sokhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia, U.S.S.R., Iskander wrote in Russian and is best known for using humor and a digressive, anecdotal style in his often satirical portrayals of life in Soviet Abkhazia.
Iskander graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow in 1954. Though he is known mostly for his prose works, he started his career as a poet, publishing six volumes of verse between 1957 and 1966.
He has written various stories, most famously “Zashita Chika”, which stars a crafty and likable young boy named “Chik”.
Fazil Iskander was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature.
RM/YAW
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