Ales Adamovich - Biography

Biography

During the World War II Ales Adamovich, a teenager, still a school student, was to become a partisan unit member in 1942-1943. That was the time when the Nazis systematically torched hundreds of Belarusian villages and exterminated their inhabitants. It was based on his real-life experiences as a messenger and a guerilla fighter during the war-time, that he later wrote one of his most recognized works, The Khatyn Story, and the screenplay for the film Come and See.

Starting in 1944, he resumed his education. After the war, he entered the Belarusian State University where he studied in the philology department and where he completed graduate course; he later studied in Moscow at the Higher Courses for Screenwriters and in the Moscow State University. Starting in the 1950s in Minsk, he worked in the field of philology and literary criticism; later also in cinematography. Was a member of the Union of Soviet Writers since 1957. In 1976 was awarded the Yakub Kolas Belarus State prize in literature for The Khatyn Story. He lived and worked in Moscow since 1986.

Ales Adamovich's writings received translation into over 20 languages.

In 1989 Adamovich became one of the first members of the Belarusian PEN center (Vasil Bykaŭ was founder and president of the Belarusian PEN). In 1994 the Belarusian PEN Center instituted the Ales Adamovich Literary Prize, a literary award to the gifted writers and journalists. The prize is awarded annually on September 3 (Ales Adamovich's birthday) at the award ceremony that is usually part of the annual international conference.

In October 1993, he signed the Letter of Forty-Two.

In 1997 Ales Adamovich was recognized (posthumously) with the "Honor and Dignity of Talent" award (“За честь и достоинство таланта”). Recipients of this noble award include Dmitry Likhachev, Victor Astafiev, Chingiz Aitmatov, Vasil Bykaŭ, Fazil Iskander, Boris Slutsky, Bulat Okudzhava.