Boris Akunin – Creator of Russia’s Crime Fiction Hero

Available for over a year

Boris Akunin is one of Russia’s most widely read contemporary novelists. His crime fiction series with the impossibly brilliant detective Erast Fandorin has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. But Boris Akunin is a pen name. The author’s latest work is written under his real name Grigory Chkhartishvili and is something entirely different – a historical novel set in the time of Peter the Great. Andrea Kennedy meets Grigory in his London home to find out how he writes a novel, finds a plot, uncovers his characters and why moving from country to country every three weeks is essential to his writing. Producer: Andrea Kennedy