Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (1905-84), Soviet novelist and Nobel laureate, born in Veshenskaya, Russia, a village on the lower Don River. His major writings realistically and dramatically depict the lives of the people of this region. They include the novels The Silent Don (4 volumes, 1928-40), published in two volumes in English as And Quiet Flows the Don (1934) and The Don Flows Home to the Sea (1940); and Virgin Soil Upturned (2 volumes, 1932-60), the first volume published (1935) in England as Virgin Soil Upturned and in the U.S. as Seeds of Tomorrow, and the second volume translated as Harvest on the Don (1960). Sholokhov is also the author of They Fought for Their Fatherland, a projected trilogy inspired by World War II; the first volume was published in 1959. He received the Stalin Prize in 1941, the Order of Lenin in 1955, and the Lenin Prize in 1960. He was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in literature.