AND HIS BOOKS

is the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, who was born in the Republic of Georgia in 1956 to a Georgian father and Jewish mother, and since 1958 has lived in Moscow.

Under his given name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, he serves as editor-in-chief of the 20-volume Anthology of Japanese Literature, chairman of the board of a large "Pushkin Library " (Soros Fund), and is the author of the book The Writer and Suicide (Moscow, The New Literary Review, 1999). He has also contributed literary criticism and translations from Japanese, American and English literature under his own name.

Under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, he has written many works of fiction, mainly novels and stories. Boris Akunin is the author of eleven Erast Fandorin novels, including The Winter Queen, The Turkish Gambit, Murder on the Leviathan, The Death of Achilles, and Special Assignments; and Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog and Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk, in the Sister Pelagia series.

In 2000 Akunin was nominated for the Smirnoff- Booker Prize. In September 2000, Akunin was named Russian Writer of the Year and won the "Antibooker" prize in 2000 for his Erast Fandorin novel Coronation, or the last of the Romanovs. In 2003 the British Crime Writers' Association placed Akunin's novel The Winter Queen on the short list for the Dagger Award in Fiction.

Year of Birth: 1856 Birthplace: Moscow, Russia Parents: Deceased – Mother unknown; Father, Lieutenant Fandorin Hair: Black Eyes: Blue Occupation: Investigator

Did you know? Erast Fandorin speaks fluent Russian, French, English, German, and Japanese. A Fandorin family trait that skips a generation, and that Erast Petrovich is the beneficiary of – especially in placing bets and playing at sports – is good luck! The first dead body Fandorin encountered on the job was that of Krupovna, a merchants wife whose throat had been sliced – her head all but severed from the rest of her body. Fandorin reacted squeamishly, and the image of the merchants wife haunted him throughout his first assignment in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Moscow Police.

Birth Name: Polina Andreevna Lisitsyna Hair: Red, a/k/a ginger Eyes: Brown Occupation: Nun, Teacher (Zavolzhsk Diocesan School for Girls) Skills: Innocent countenance (freckled and wide-eyed), keen hearing and eyesight, perceptive, quality knitter (and capable of using knitting tools in self-defense), quick-witted, intelligent, open-minded Hidden talent: Solving mysterious crimes on behalf of Bishop Mitrofanii – who owes his reputation for solving difficult cases to the background work of this especially devoted confidante