Arkadij Babtsjenko
Arkadiy Babchenko (b. 1977) is a Russian journalist and writer and one of Russia's bravest war reporters. Babchenko was very young when he was sent to Chechnya in 1996 to serve in the First and Second Chechnya Wars. He spent four years in Chechnya and has since published a number of prose stories based on the experiences of the wars. Some of these are collected in the book Ten Stories about the War (Desiat serij o vojne, 2001), for which Babchenko was awarded the literature prize Debut for Babchenko's stories focuses on the individual's experience of violence, pain, struggle and death. The geopolitical context flips into the background in favor of a realistic and poignant representation of the inhumane aspects of war, where life is fragile and the next day or hour unpredictable.