Belov, Vasilii

Belov, Vasilii Ivanovich 

Born Oct. 23, 1932, in the village of Timonikha, Vologoda Oblast. Soviet Russian writer. Member of the CPSU since 1956.

Belov graduated from the Gorky Institute of Literature (1964). He worked in a kolkhoz and at a plant in the Urals. He began publishing in 1956. Belov has published a collection of poems, My Little Forest Village (1961), and the collections of stories Hot Summer (1963) and River Bends (1964).

Belov’s prose is lyrical. His stories A Usual Affair (1966) and Carpenters’ Stories (1968) stand out among books on the contemporary village. They depict completely the characters of the simple people of the north who, despite all hardships and adversities, have preserved “warmth of goodness” and “delight in the world”—feelings that color their everyday life and work.

WORKS

Tisha da Grisha: Povest’: Rasskazy. Moscow, 1966.
Za tremia volokami: Povest’ i rasskazy. Moscow, 1968.

REFERENCES

Dorosh, E. “Ivan Afrikanovich.” Novyi mir, 1966, no. 8.
Voitinskaia, O. “Proza Vasiliia Belova.” Znamia, 1967, no. 1.
Zolotusskii, I. “Teplo dobra: Proza Vasiliia Belova.” Literaturnaia gazeta, Jan. 24, 1968.