Andrey Volos was born in 1955 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, beside Pamir Mountains, close to Afghanistan. Now he lives in Moscow, he is author of six books of fiction and poetry, member of boards of several Russian important cultural awards such as the Antibooker prize.

He is the winner of Znamja Prize (1996), of the exclusive Antibooker Award (1998), of "Penne-Moscow" ( Italy, 2000) and at last, 2001, of the National Russian Literary Prize. He is also been honoured of an important Novyj Mir Award(2001).

He received his Degree in Engineering and worked first as geophysicist (1977-1993), then as a real estate agent and actually works as a manager in an important industry firm. His literary career as a poet and poetry translator dates from 1986.

Endowed by a brilliant talent for narration in conjunction with an exceptional life experience as a witness of the civil war in the Post-Soviet Central Asiatic Republics, Andrey Volos started writing short stories in a Classic Russian tradition. They arrived soon into the headlines of the Literary supplements and were a big success. His short novels were published since 1990 in such high-ranking literary thick magazines as "Novyj mir" . Short stories, amalgamated in a revised version, formed his first long novel "Churramabad" (2000).

"Churramabad" is written by a writer with a profound knowledge of the Muslim world. He observed with his own eyes during the tragic Nineties the atrocities of the Tajik civil war and the genocide of Russians, the nefarious influence of neighbouring Afghanistan war lords and huge drug trade practiced under a tacit benediction of Russian authorities and military commanders… Being Russian intellectual with first hand experience of what is the Islamic fanaticism in action, he understands its inner mechanism and mentality. And he remains impartial in the conflict between Tajiks and Russians, knowing that cruelty and insanity are shared by both sides.

He tells us memorable stories of a lone old woman that makes friends with a rattle snake, about a teenager whose mixed Tajik Russian family is the microcosm of the war itself. Writing about war and terrorism he is extremely actual in particular now after the world experienced the tragedies of Balkans, Nine Eleven and Beslan child slaughter.

Andrey Volos could probably be the only modern writer able to narrate the psycho-sociologic substrate that stand at the grass-roots of those problems in highly emotional and poetic language.

"Churramabad" won several most important Russian National literary awards. Then came Italian prize "Premio Penne" (translated partly in Italian and published with a title "I racconti di Churramabad", Edizioni Tracce, 2000, Pescara). It was also translated into German ("Churramobod – stadt der freude", roman, Berlin Verlag, Berlin, 2000) and reviewed by Ulrich M. Schmid in Neue Zuricher Zeitung 20/04/2000, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10/05/2000 by Tilman Spreckelsen, Deutchlandfunk 5/05/2000, by Neus Deutchland (8/09/2000, Pobert Sandow), and again WDR 28/09/2000, Westdeutcher Rundfunk Koln 28/09/2000, Berliner Zeitung 22/07/2000 (Gregor Ziolkowski), Tages-Anzeiger 23/06/2000 (Adam Olshevski), Sudwestrundfunk 6/07/2000, Sachsische Zeitung 20/05/2000 (Rosemarie Thiemt), Tagesspiegel 5/06/2000, RTV 1/09/2000.

After "Real estate" novel (2001), where Andrey Volos narrates his experience of a real -estate agent in Moscow in the 90-ties, he published "The Moscow mecca" (2003). It is an anti-utopian novel set in Moscow a couple of decades in the future. Moscow is ruled by a Muslim party and becomes a city-state of its own. The general poverty is in contrast with the riches of the chosen few. But the city is surrounded by the rest of Russia presented as Moscow Region where a sort of caricature version of Communism of Stalinist stamp prevailed. The plot develops as an alternation and counterpoint of these two realities and the reader can observe how the population of the Communist suburbs dream to escape to Moscow, a harsh but exiting megalopolis, while on the contrary, the poor and oppressed Moscow citizens dream of living in a quite Communist paradise of Moscow suburbs. The book is nicely reminiscent of some of the best examples of Russian literature such as "Dead Souls" by Gogol (description of Eternal Russia, its sloth and fatalism) and "Moscow 2040 " by Vladimir Voynovich when dealing with futuristic Moscow with some features that are already recognizable in the Moscow of today.

"Animator", his new novel, will be published in 2005 by Frassinelli (Mondadori Group, Italy). It is a literary rendering of the famous incident of October 2003 in Moscow Music hall Dubrovka, where Chechen terrorists took hostages a full audience of 850 persons, many of whom died in a clumsy gas attack organized by the special troops in the take-over attempt. Andrey Volos describes with knowledge and detail the mentality and way of life of Muslim terrorists, including the preparation of the suicide-bombers for the coup that could presumably be of the same as Al-Qaeda uses to indoctrinate their militants. The plot is very tight with elements of fantastic and mysticism a la Steven King.

Rich in fantastic inventiveness Animator remains firmly anchored in actual historical background.It describes life of Moscow oligarchs that scheme with terrorist in their unquenchable thirst for more riches and more power, of Russian intellectual boheme and its moral dilemma. The writer tells us simultaneously how a young Muslim terrorist feels when he pulls the cord of his deadly explosive devise and what his victim thinks sitting on the next seat in the same fated bus, deep in his thoughts about eternal philosophical problems of life and death. He knows contemporarily how the secret servicemen plan their shade operations and the inner softer personal story of a ruthless Chechen mass terrorist. All these threads of the plot are tightly interwoven in a highly intense and electric action of the narration that has a rhythm of a real thriller.

In ANIMATOR exuberate fantastic particularies, but there is besides a firm bonding to the conemporaneity. All the world is mindful of a recent ( 22 March 2004) interview released by the Egyptian radical Ayman al Zawahiri, the N.2 of Osama Bin Laden’s terror network, to a Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (Australian Broadcasting Corp. television). Mir recalled telling to al-Zawahiri it was difficult to believe that Al Quaeda had nuclear weapons. "Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri laughed and he said: "Mr Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of… smart briefcase bombs are available" – Mir said in the interview.

Very similar facts are described in the ANIMATOR novel, mixed with an entertaining Moscow intellectuals story with a backstage of Moscow bars, theatres, scientific research centres and the basement, secret areas of Special services Head Office. A delighted and tragic story of the hero’s love retrieved and lost, an intricately woven plot makes makes this book look like a very good made possible blockbuster.