Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Chapters: Anton Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Bella Akhmadulina, Aleksandr Kuprin, Fazil Iskander, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Viktor Astafyev, Konstantin Staniukovich, Sasha Sokolov, Yakov Polonsky, Apollon Maykov, Vladimir Makanin, Andrei Bitov, Vadim Shefner, Yevgeny Rein. Excerpt: Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (Russian: , 22 October 1870 - 8 November 1953) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is considered to be one of the richest in the language. Best known for his short novels The Village (1910) and Dry Valley (1912), his autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1933, 1939), the book of short stories Dark Avenues (1946) and his 1917-1918 diary (Cursed Days, 1926), Bunin was a much revered figure among anti-communist White emigres, European critics, and many of his fellow writers, who viewed him as a true heir to the tradition of realism in Russian literature established by Tolstoy and Chekhov. Ivan Bunin was born on his parental estate in Voronezh province in Central Russia, the third and youngest son of Aleksei Nikolaevich Bunin (1827-1906) and Liudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (née Chubarova, 1835-1910). He had two younger sisters: Masha and Nadya (the latter died very young). Having come from a long line of rural gentry family which had a distinguished ancestry with Polish roots, Bunin was especially proud that poets Anna Bunina (1774-1829) and Vasíly Zhukóvsky (1783-1852) were among his ancestors. He wrote in his 1952 autobiography: "The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince Vasily Vasilyevich, " he wrote in 1915, quoting the Russian gentry's Armorial Book. Chubarovs, according to Bunin, "knew very little about themselves except that their ancestors were landowners in Kostromskaya, Moskovskaya, Orlovskya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas". "As for me, from early childhood I was such a libertine as to be totally indifferent both to my own 'high blood' and to the loss of whatever might have been connected to it", he added. Ivan Bunin's early childhood, s