Alexei Ivanov

Alexey Viktorovich Ivanov is a Russian writer and screenwriter.

He was born on November 23, 1969, in the city of Gorky into a family of shipbuilders. He graduated from school in Perm.

Since childhood, Ivanov wanted to become a writer. It seemed to him that the nearest path to writing was journalism, so in 1987, immediately after school, he moved to Sverdlovsk and entered the Faculty of Journalism at Ural State University. However, he studied there for only one year: that was enough to realize that a journalist is not a writer.

In 1990, Ivanov entered the Faculty of Art History at the same university, deciding that “for a writer, broad erudition is more important than narrow specialization” and that a degree in art history would help him master the language of detailed description of various textures necessary for creative work. At the faculty, Ivanov specialized in book graphics and defended his thesis on the work of illustrator Gennady Kalinovsky.

While studying at the university, Ivanov spent a great deal of time in the editorial office of the magazine Ural Pathfinder and was in fact an unpaid freelance contributor to the fantasy department, headed by Vitaly Ivanovich Bugrov. Ivanov checked quizzes, sorted through unsolicited submissions, and reviewed manuscripts. In those years, he also wrote science fiction himself. In 1990, Bugrov published the first fantasy story by the aspiring author, “Hunting for Ursa Major,” in Ural Pathfinder. However, Ivanov quickly moved away from science fiction into other areas of literature, and fifteen years passed between his first magazine publication and his first book.

Throughout all those years, Ivanov did not give up hope of becoming a professional writer. He worked as a teacher, a watchman, and a guide, and wrote novels that no one wanted to publish. “Dormitory-on-the-Blood” (1993), “The Geographer Drank His Globe Away” (1995), and “Heart of Parma” (2000) remained in his desk drawer.

Ivanov’s first book, the novel Heart of Parma, would not be published until 2003 by Palmyra Publishing House. A recommendation from writer Leonid Yuzefovich helped Ivanov gain access