Boris Akunin

Career

Chkhartishvili worked as assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature, but left in October 2000 to pursue a career as a fiction writer.

Influenced by Japanese kabuki theatre, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moscow State University as an expert on Japan. He was engaged in literary translation from Japanese and English. Japanese authors Yukio Mishima, Kenji Maruyama, Yasushi Inoue, Masahiko Shimada, Kobo Abe, Shinichi Hoshi, Takeshi Kaiko, Shohei Ooka were published in his translation, as well as representatives of American and English literature (T. C. Boyle, Malcolm Bradbury, Peter Ustinov, etc.).

Under his given name of Grigory Chkhartishvili, he was editor-in-chief of the 20-volume Anthology of Japanese Literature, chairman of the board of a large "Pushkin Library”, and is the author of the book The Writer and Suicide (Moscow, The New Literary Review, 1999). He has also contributed literary criticism and translations from Japanese, American, and English literature under his own name.

He publishes other critical and documentary works under his real name.

Since 1998, he has been writing fiction under the pseudonym “B. Akunin", decoding "B" as "Boris". "Akunin" (悪人) is a Japanese word that translates to "bad person" or "villain". In his novel The Diamond Chariot, the author redefines an "akunin" as a great evil man who creates his own rules.

Under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, he has written many works of fiction, mainly novels and stories in the series The Adventures of Erast Fandorin, The Adventures of Sister Pelagia, The Adventures of the Master (following Nicholas Fandorin, Erast's grandson), all published in Russia by Zakharov Books, and the Roman-Kino ("Novel-Film") series set during World War I. Akunin's specialty is historical mysteries set in Imperial Russia. It was only after the first books of the Fandorin series were published to critical acclaim that the identity of "B. Akunin" (i.e., Chkhartishvili) was revealed.

Akunin lived in Moscow until 2014. He has since lived in Britain, France and Spain. As of 2024 he is living in London.

Recognition

Chkhartishvili has been called by Igor Pomerantsev the "undisputed champion" of Russian crime fiction, given that, as Boris Akunin, he "has written more than a dozen crime novels and has been widely appreciated by discerning readers ... and has been translated into many languages".

Political views

Akunin has been critical of Vladimir Putin's domestic and foreign policies since the invasion of Georgia and the annexation of Crimea. After the death of Alexei Navalny, Akunin said: "There is nothing more the dictator [Putin] can do to Navalny. Navalny is dead and has become immortal".

Akunin participated in a fundraiser in 2022 to benefit Russians accused of "discrediting" the Russian army under the Russian 2022 war censorship laws.

In December 2023, the pranksters Vovan and Lexus called Akunin and Dmitry Bykov, pretending to be representatives of the Ukrainian Government, and released the recordings of Akunin and Bykov expressing their support for Ukraine. The response in Russia was negative: many Russian publishing booksellers, including publishing company AST, ceased publication and distribution of Akunin's and Bykov's works. One of the few booksellers that continued to distribute Akunin's books, Zakharov Books, came under investigation by the Investigative Committee of Russia. Russian politician Andrey Gurulyov called Akunin an "enemy" that "must be destroyed".

Akunin was then added by Rosfinmonitoring to its list of terrorists and extremists, with Akunin specifically believed to be complicit in terrorist activity by the Russian Government. The government also opened a criminal case against Akunin, with allegations of discreditation of the Russian army. In response, Akunin wrote on Facebook: "Terrorists declared me a terrorist." In an article on his website, Akunin has warned Russians abroad to not return to Russia.

In January 2024, Akunin was designated a "foreign agent" by the Russian Ministry of Justice. This designation requires that the subject identify themselves as a "foreign agent" on social media and any other publications, and imposes heavy financial reporting requirements. Later that month, Russia's Interior Ministry put his name on a wanted list for alleged criminal activity. In February the same year, a Moscow court ordered the arrest of Akunin in absentia. In July 2025, he was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in prison for promoting terrorism and spreading false information about the Russian Armed Forces.

In June 2024, the online library of Boris Akunin was blocked in Russia due to the library's distribution of Vladimir Sorokin's book The Heritage.(Russian: Наследие, romanized: Naslediye).

Adaptations

Two Fandorin novels, The Turkish Gambit and The State Counsellor, were made into big-budget Russian movies. Azazel was adapted twice for television, first as The Winter Queen, and later as Fandorin. Azazel, produced by Yandex Studios and the Kinopoisk streaming service.

An English remake of The Winter Queen was due to go into production. It was set to start filming in 2007, but the leading actress, Milla Jovovich, became pregnant, and the production process was delayed to unknown date.

Pelagia and the White Bulldog was made into a TV mini-series in 2009, while The Spy Novel came out in a 2012 theatrical release as Spy.