29 November), 1905, Novospasovka, Tambov Governorate – 30 June 1995, Voronezh) was a Soviet writer, best known for his novel White Bim Black Ear.

His first book, the collection Iz zapisok agronoma [Diaries of an Agronomist], was published in 1953 by Novy Mir; in it he "ridiculed district party secretaries, kolkhoz chairmen, village demagogues and thieves"[1]—"His discerning first-person narrator introduces readers to the lyrical beauties of the Russian landscape and the grotesque human figures that dot it.

His first novel, Chernozem [Black Earth], appeared in Novy Mir in 1958–1961; it describes rural life under Joseph Stalin and was attacked by the Soviet literary establishment.

His O rekakh, pochvakh i prochikh [About rivers, soils, and other things] (1965) documented the misuse of Russia's natural resources and predicted an ecological disaster.

In 1975, he received the State Prize, and afterwards he held a senior position on the board of the Russian Federation Union of Writers.