Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Since these leading Russian sf authors are brothers who normally work as a team, they can both be covered in a single entry. Boris (born 1933) is an astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory, and Arkadi (born 1925) is a linguist, translator and an expert on Japan. They first came to prominence with Hard to Be a God (USSR 1964; UK translation 1975), in which a historian from Earth attempts to survey the strife-torn society of a distant planet. In fact, the novel is a thinly-disguised attack on bureaucratic tyranny, outside intervention, intolerance and corruption, as are many of their subsequent stories.

These include The Second Invasion of the Martians (USSR 1967), The Snail on the Slope (USSR 1968), The Fairy Tale of the Troika (USSR 1968) and The Inhabited Island (USSR 1969). Their use of science fiction as a means of social criticism, with frequent allegorical attacks against the Soviet regime, was almost bound to bring them into disrepute with the appropriate authorities. The gag was duly administered in 1969. Two of their short stories can be found in the anthology, Path Into the Unknown: The Best of Soviet Science Fiction (UK 1966).

// Ash B. Who Is Who in Science Fiction. – Lnd.: Elm Tree Books, 1976. P. 188-189.