Alexander Genis


Alexander Genis is a Russian–American writer, broadcaster, and cultural critic. He has written more than a dozen books that are non-fiction bestsellers in Russia.
Genis, an American citizen, resides in the New York City area. He is the father of Daniel Genis, writer and journalist.

Life and career

After graduating from the Latvian State University in Riga, then in the Soviet Union, Genis immigrated to the USA in 1977 at the age of 24. His career started in New York City where he met and worked with Nobel Prize in Literature winner Joseph Brodsky, writer Sergei Dovlatov, painter and writer-conceptualist Vagrich Bakhchanyan.

Genis is an anchorman of the weekly radio-show American Hour with Alexander Genis broadcast in Russian by Radio Liberty since the 1990s. Genis is a columnist and a contributing writer for the main liberal Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and used to be the host of the TV show Alexander Genis. Letters from America, shown on Russian TV channel "Culture".