About Orlando Figes and His Works

Orlando Figes was born to a literary critic and a writer Eva Figes on November 20, 1959. He was the last of the two sibling and both Orlando and his sister Kate grew up to become famous writers like their mother.

Figes graduated from Cambridge University, where he was awarded Double Star for his dedication and research work in history. There he wrote his thesis on Ludwig Borne and the formation of a radical critique of Judaism, which was published in Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook in the year 1984.  He continued his doctorate from The Trinity College, Cambridge, where he intensively studied the Russian history and culture. His association with Teodor Shanin a Professor of Sociology at the Manchester University, paved way for access to Soviet archives. The exposure to the Russian literature clearly reflects in his early works A People's Tragedy and Peasant Russia.

His famous creations include:

•  Just Send Me Word - A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag published in 2012.

• Crimea - The Last Crusade published in 2010.

• The Whisperers - Private Life in Stalin's Russia published in 2007, nominated to receive Samuel Johnson  Prize and Ondaatje   Prize in 2008 and Prix Médicis in 2009.

• Natasha's Dance - A Cultural History of Russia published by London, Penguin in 2002 was nominated for the Samuel   Johnson Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize and won the Przeglad  Wschodni   Award in 2009.

• A People's Tragedy - The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 published by London, Pimlico in 1996. The book was translated into 20 languages, which in 1997 received the NCR Book Award, the Wolfson Prize, the W. H. Smith Literary Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Longman/ History Today Book Prize.

• Peasant Russia, Civil War -the Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917-21 published by Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Figes served as a lecturer in history from 1984 to 1999. He currently lives in Cambridge, London and is married to the human-rights lawyer Stephanie Palmer, a Senior Lecturer in Law at Cambridge University and Barrister at Blackstone Chambers London. They have two daughters, Lydia and Alice. He is employed by the Birkbeck University of London as a Professor in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology. His current research portfolio is based on Russian and East European history and culture. The course modules, facilitated by Figes as mentioned on Birkbeck's website are The Soviet Experience-Stalinism Through the Eyes of the Individual and A Hundred Years of the Russian Revolution. Orlando Figes' own website serves as a forum for gaining access to his latest creations; it also summarizes his creations and sheds light on the areas of his interest and expertise.