Alexander Yakovlevich Yashin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Я́ковлевич Я́шин; March 27, 1913 – July 11, 1968)[1] was a Soviet writer associated with the Village Prose movement.

Yashin was born in the northern Russian village of Bludnovo, Nikolsky Uyezd, Vologda Governorate, to a poor peasant family.

He finished a teachers' training college course and spent some time teaching in a village school.

[2][3] In the late 1930s he studied at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow[2] where his book of poems, The Northern Maiden, was published in 1938.

[3] After the war he travelled back to the northern villages of his youth, staying with the builders at new construction sites and with the pioneers developing the virgin lands of Altay.