Aleksandr Kabakov was a Russian writer and journalist.^[1] He was born in 1943 in Novosibirsk, where his family had been evacuated during World War II.^[2] He studied mechanics and mathematics in Dnepropetrovsk, and worked in a missile factory after graduation. Eventually, he landed at the railroad industry newspaper Gudok [ru], where he worked for more than a decade; he also worked at Moscow News and Kommersant.^[3][4]

He became well known during the perestroika period for his dystopian novel No Return, which was translated into multiple languages and also adapted into a film.^[5] The English translation was done by Thomas Whitney.^[6] Other noted works include The Last Hero (1995) and Nothing's Lost (2003), which won the second jury prize from the Big Book Award and the Apollon Grigoriev Prize [ru].^[7] With Yevgeny Popov, he co-wrote a book of reminiscences about the writer Vasily Aksyonov that was shortlisted for the 2012 Big Book Award.^[8]

Kabakov expressed his admiration for writers such as Georgi Vladimov, Yuri Trifonov, Sergei Dovlatov, Asar Eppel, Valery Popov, and Ludmila Ulitskaya.

He died in Moscow in 2020.^[9]

• Aksyonov (co-written with Evgeny Popov) – second jury prize, Big Book Award, 2012
• Nothing's Lost – Big Book Award finalist, 2006, won second jury prize; won the Apollon Grigoriev Prize, 2004
• Moscow Tales – Big Book Award finalist, 2006; won Prose of the Year, 2005; won the Ivan Bunin Prize [ru], 2006
• No Return (Невозвращенец) (William Morrow & Co., 1990, tr. Thomas Whitney)
• Anthologies: “Shelter” in Read Russia! (Read Russia, 2012, tr. Daniel Jaffe) and Life Stories: Original Works by Russian Writers (Russian Life, 2009, tr. Anna Seluyanova)
• A Runaway (Беглец), 2009
• The Imposter (Самозванец), 1997