Isbakh, Aleksandr Abramovich

Isbakh, Aleksandr Abramovich 

(pseudonym of A. A. Isbakh-Bakhrakh). Born Jan. 30 (Feb. 12), 1904, in Dvinsk, now Daugavpils, Latvian SSR. Soviet Russian writer and literary scholar. Member of the CPSU since 1926.

Isbakh graduated from the language and literature department of Moscow State University (1924) and the Institute of the Red Professoriat (1934). He served in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). Isbakh’s works were first published in 1920. His collections of short stories include With Rifle and Book (1926), People of the Front Line (1960), On the Roads of Europe (1964), and My Youth, My Komsomol (1966). Among his other works are the novel Factory Hands (1966); two scholarly and artistic biographies, Louis Aragon: Life and Works (1962) and Furmanov (1968); two collections of literary portraits of Soviet and foreign writers, Facing the Fire (1958) and On the Literary Barricades (1964); and essays on French literature, published under the title At the Head of the Column (1970). Isbakh has been awarded three orders and several medals.