Vasilii Pavlovich Aksenov

Born Aug. 20, 1932, in Kazan. Soviet Russian writer.

In 1956, Aksenov graduated from the Leningrad Medical Institute, and in 1959 he published his first stories. His basic theme is the life of contemporary youth. His works include the novella Colleagues (1960); the play of the same name in collaboration with Iu. Stabov (1961); the film of the same name (1963); the novels A Ticket to the Stars (1961) and It’s Time, My Friend, It’s Time (1964); the novella Oranges From Morocco (1963); the anthologies Catapult (1964) and Halfway to the Moon (1966); and the play Always for Sale (produced in the Sovremennik Theater, 1965). His satirical and fantastical novella The Overstocked Packing Barrel was published in 1968. Many of Aksenov’s works have been justly criticized in print for their one-sidedness in portraying contemporary youth and for their misuse of jargon.