Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (October 10, 1870 – November 8, 1953) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is one of the richest in the language. His last book of fiction, The Dark Alleys (1943), is arguably the most widely read 20th-century collection of short stories in Russia.

Renown

From 1895 on, Bunin divided his time between Moscow and St. Petersburg. He married the daughter of a Greek revolutionary in 1898, but the marriage ended in divorce. Although he remarried in 1907, Bunin's romances with other women continued until his very death. His tempestous private life in emigration is the subject of the internationally acclaimed Russian movie, The Diary of His Wife (2000).

Related Topics:
1895 - Moscow - 1898 - 1907

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Bunin published his first full-length work, The Village, when he was 40. It was a bleak portrayal of village life, with its stupidity, brutality, and violence. Its harsh realism, "the characters having sunk so far below the average of intelligence as to be scarcely human," brought him in touch with Maxim Gorky. Two years later, he published Dry Valley, which was a veiled portrayal of his family.

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Before World War I, Bunin traveled in Ceylon, Palestine, Egypt, and Turkey, and these travels left their mark on his writing. He spent the winters from 1912 to 1914 on Capri with Gorky.

Related Topics:
World War I - Ceylon - Palestine - Egypt - Turkey - 1912 - 1914 - Capri

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