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Vadim Babenko was born in Russia. He has lived in Moscow, Washington D.C. and Madrid. In the late eighties his seminal poetry was well-received by educated Muscovites for its ingenuity and singularity. Most of his early work was included in "To Gudwin and Kate", his first poetry collection published in 1994 in Moscow.
In the United States, Vadim Babenko continued his literary work, which resulted in another book, "The Twin", coming into being in 1996. Since it was published and distributed in the U.S., it hardly reached Russian readers. Recently he published another florilegium of poetry that contains the best pieces (carefully revised by the author) from the two aforementioned books and some poems he had never published before. The author considers this book, "The Refuge for the Stunned Ark", the only "official" collection of his early poetry. It was published almost simultaneously in Moscow and Tel-Aviv in 2001. New poems written within the last two years have not yet been published but may also be found at this site.
Since 1996 he has dedicated himself to larger literary forms that combine a poetic structure with a fully developed plot typical of prose. The result has been two books - "In The Unnamed Seas" and "Buenos Aires" - which were published in Moscow in 2001-2002.
Then the author moved on to "pure" prose. His first full-scale novel, "The Black Pelican", was completed in 2004 and published in Moscow at the beginning of 2006. In the year 2007 "The Black Pelican" made short list of the "National Bestseller" award and was also nominated to the "Big Book" award. These are the two most important literary awards in Russia. Recently, Vadim Babenko has finished his second novel that is called "A Simple Soul". At this site you can find select chapters of both works in English.
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