[quote]MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti) – Boris Strugatsky, the last remaining member of the legendary Russian science fiction duo best known internationally for providing the story behind Arseny Tarkovsky’s classic film Stalker, died on Monday. He was 79.
Strugatsky died due to heart problems, a friend of the novelist who asked not to be identified told RIA Novosti. But novelist Nina Katerli said he died of blood cancer. The reports could not be immediately reconciled.
Strugatsky, a native of St. Petersburg, known at the time as Leningrad, and an astronomer by education, rose to literary prominence through science fiction novels co-written with his elder brother Arkady, who died in 1991 at the age of 66.
The two were a formative influence on Soviet science fiction, a genre that thrived behind the Iron Curtain beginning in the 1960s despite censorship limitations, mainly due its popularity with the country’s large technical intelligentsia.
Though rooted in classic Western science fiction of Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, the Strugatskys developed a unique literary style, offering crisp, laconic and literate prose imbued with societal optimism inspired by Communism, which, however, dissipated in their later writings, created as the Soviet Union staggered toward collapse.
The duo published 27 novels and novellas between 1958 and 1988, though many were edited for censorship purposes. Their works are available in 42 languages, including English, where translated titles include Far Rainbow (translated in 1979), Hard to Be God (1973) and Roadside Picnic (1977).
Many Strugatsky novels were made into movies, including Roadside Picnic, turned into the movie Stalker by Tarkovsky in 1979. In 1977, the duo had a main belt asteroid named after them.
After Arkady Strugatsky’s death of liver cancer, his brother continued writing on his own, publishing two novels, the latest of which came out in 2003.
Boris Strugatsky was also moderately active as an opposition activist, accusing President Vladimir Putin of authoritarianism, opposing the jailing of Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and supporting the oppositional Yabloko party.[/quote]
Sources [url]http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121119/177593582.html[/url]
[url]http://www.examiner.com/article/russian-sci-fi-novelist-boris-strugatsky-dies[/url]
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/russian-sci-fi-writer-boris-strugatsky-whose-story-194330033.html[/url]
Great author, it's a shame his work isn't very well-known in the West beyond the anecdote that it inspired STALKER.
[URL="http://lib.ru/STRUGACKIE/engl_picnic.txt"]Here's the entire text of Roadside Picnic in English, for anyone interested[/URL].
I feel the need to read Roadside Picnic again
I read Roadside Picnic and The inhabited Island, they were really good. The inhabited Island reminded of Franz Kafka due to the simple nature of the writing. Although I read it in german, so it might be different in other languages.
His writing mechanics aren't super good but the stories he tells are very good
I think the localizations are somewhat bad, considering that the original is in russian. It might be hard to translate it properly. I read Roadside picnic in german and english, the german version was horrible. The english one was better. I imagine that the original is far better than anything.
Really gotta get around to reading more of the Strugatsky brothers' works... I've read Roadside Picnic a few times and I just love it. The translation from Russian to English is a bit odd, but its still a very good read.
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