Aleksandr Voinov

Aleksandr Voinov is an emigrant German author living near London where, after four years in financial journalism, he is now making his living as an editor at an investment bank, freelance writer and creative writing teacher.  At 35 years of age, Voinov has written about 13 novels and commercially published five with German publishers. After many years working in the horror, science fiction, cyberpunk and fantasy genres, Voinov has set his sights now on contemporary and historical erotic gay novels. He published his non-commercial work as Vashtan.

Voinov's natural form is the novel, as all short stories eventually turn into novels. Described as a "workaholic speed-writing freak" by fellow writers, a "creative writing class drill sergeant" by his writing 'padawans', Voinov is a self-confessed geek and has enlarged his days by 12 secret hours in return for the sacrifice of ten albino virgin pygmy hippos.

Voinov's characters are often scarred lonely souls at odds with their environment and pitted against odds that make or break them. He described the perfect ending for his books as "the characters make it out alive, but at a terrible cost, usually by the skin of their teeth. I want to see what's at the core of them, and stripping them down to that core is rarely pleasant for them. But it does make them wiser, and often stronger people."

Voinov's style has been called "dynamic to the point of breathlessness", "dark to the point of fatalism" and "disturbingly poetic" by publishers and literary agents.

Voinov has just barely enough time to take care of a Chinese elm bonsai standing on his desk, goes weight-lifting, and confuses opponents as a left-hander in foil fencing. Intellectually, Voinov is drawn to the dark side of human nature and history. As a trained historian, Voinov is fascinated by wars, religion and the conflict between the individual and society (see "Test of Faith" and "Spoils of War").

Interest at the moment include professional chess players, raising bonsais from seed, Swedish massage, tailored suits, and networking with writers and literary agents. The interests are subject to change from one day to the other, and Voinov single-handedly sustains three bookshops in London.