Aleksei Tolstoy author page

Aleksei Tolstoy biography

Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoy (also published as Alexei Tolstoy) was a Russian and Soviet writer whose work spans children’s fiction, science fiction, plays, short stories, and major historical novels. He is distinct from the earlier novelist Leo Tolstoy.

For young readers, Tolstoy is best known for The Little Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino, a retelling of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio that introduces Buratino, a wooden puppet whose quick thinking drives a sequence of comic adventures. The book became a fixture of 20th-century Russian children’s reading and has been adapted for stage and screen.

Tolstoy also helped establish early Russian science fiction with the novels Aelita and The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin, combining fast-moving plots with explorations of technology and power. His large historical project Peter the First portrays the rise of Peter I and the transformation of the Russian state. Across genres, he wrote in serial form for periodicals as well as in book editions, reaching wide audiences.

Selected works for children and teens include The Little Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino and the autobiographical cycle often translated as Nikita’s Childhood. Notable works for general readers include Aelita, The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin, and Peter the First. Tolstoy’s range across children’s literature, speculative fiction, and historical narrative keeps his books in circulation for classrooms and libraries.