Boris Strugatskiy(1933-2012)

Born 1933 in Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR (now Saint Petersburg in Russia), Boris Natanovich Strugatskiy was a Soviet/Russian sci-fi writer, often writing in collaboration with his older brother Arkadiy Strugatskiy. Strugatskiys' father Natan Strugatskiy was a Jewish art critic and their mother was a Russian Orthodox teacher. Living in Leningrad with his mother, Boris survived the 1941-1944 siege of the city by the Nazi Germany army. In 1955 he graduated astronomy and went on to word as an astronomer and computer engineer. In 1958 the Strugatskiy brothers begun their artistic collaboration, which lasted until Arkadiy's death in 1991. In 1966 Boris quit his job to become a full-time writer and starting form 1972, he taught a speculative fiction writing seminar. In 1979, the brothers' best-known novel, "Piknik na obochine" ("Roadside Picnic") was loosely adapted for the screen by Andrei Tarkovsky as Stalker (1979). After his brother's death, Boris published two more books, which he wrote under a pseudonym. He died on November 19, 2012 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Writings of the Strugatskiys continue to inspire creators of movies (such as Dark Planet (2008)) and video games (such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007) and its sequels).