James Lloydovich Patterson (Russian: Джеймс Ллойдович Паттерсон, romanized: Dzheyms Lloydovich Patterson, [ˈd͡ʑɛjms ˈlojdɐvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈpatʲɪrsən]; born 17 July 1933) is a Russian-American writer, naval officer, and former child actor of African American and White Russian descent.

[2] James was a member of the Komsomol and graduated from the Riga Nakhimov Naval School, a prestigious military academy for boys of high-school age, in 1951.

Commissioned as an officer in the Soviet Navy, Patterson began serving with the Black Sea Fleet in 1955.

Leaving the Soviet Navy, Patterson graduated from the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in 1964, drawing inspiration from subjects as diverse as the sea, the beginning of the Space Age, and the racial tension around the time of the desegregation efforts of the Civil Rights Movement.

He lives a quiet life in Washington, D.C.[1] The English translation of his 1964 book Chronicle of the Left Hand, was published in 2022 by New Academia Press.