Alexander Kuznetsov-Tulyanin was born in 1963 in Tula. As a child, he moved to the Far East with his parents and subsequently lived alternately on the mainland, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The writer served in the army, worked in newspapers, and studied by correspondence at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. He has been published in the magazines “Continent”, “Friendship of Peoples”, “October”, “Znamya”, “New World” and others. His novel “Pagan” about the life of people on the Kuril Islands was nominated for a prize named after. Apollo Grigoriev and “National Bestseller”. Twice, in 2004 and 2005, the novel was included in the nomination “For Outstanding Creative Achievement in the Field of Russian Literature” of the Yasnaya Polyana Prize.