Janka Bryl

Although he was captured by the Germans at Gdynia, he was able to escape and returned to Belarus, where he joined the partisans and served several groups in different capacities.

He began his writing career in Mir as an editor for a partisan newspaper, The Banner of Freedom and contributed pieces to a satirical journal called the Guerrilla Gigolo.

[citation needed] In October 1944, he moved to Minsk where he worked on several newspapers and magazines, as well as in the State Publishing House and became Secretary of the local writers' union.

In 1981, he was awarded the honorific title of People's Writer of the Byelorussian SSR and in 1994 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

Bryl's books are mostly works of psychological fiction and his characters tend to be sensitive and prone to introspection.