21 December 1902] – 2 November 1972), sometimes transliterated from the Russian Cyrillic as Aleksandr Bek or Anglicized to Alexander Beck, was a Soviet novelist and writer.

The son of a physician employed by the Imperial Russian Army, Bek received an upbringing in his native city of Saratov, where he attended a Realschule.

[2] He produced one of his life's most famous works, Volokolamsk Highway («Волоколамское шоссе»), in 1944, depicting the heroism of Moscow's defenders.

The more famous of Bek's 1950s and 1960s works included the Several Days («Несколько дней») and General Panfilov's Reserve («Резерв генерала Панфилова»), both of which appeared in 1960, as well as the 1956 Talent (The Life of Berezhkov) («Талант (Жизнь Бережкова)»), which appeared in English as Berezhkov - The Story Of An Inventor and was based on the real life of a specialist involved in the Soviet automobile industry.

Despite the initial announcement of the book's publication in the pages of Novy Mir, the novel was not published in the Soviet Union until 1986 – in large part as a result of the protests of Tevosian's widow, who complained that the work unfairly discussed the more private aspects of her late husband's life.