Valentin Yakovlevich Kurbatov (Russian: Валенти́н Я́ковлевич Курба́тов) (29 September 1939 – 6 March 2021[1]) was a Russian literary critic, prose writer, jury member of the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award, member of the Writers' Union of Russia.

He was holder of the Medal of Pushkin,[2] Order of Friendship[3] and laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2020) in the field of literature.

At the beginning of the war, his father was drafted into the labor army in the Urals, and the mother, left alone, became a trackman on the railway.

During his naval service in the Russian North he was a radiotelegraph operator, typographer, librarian of the ship's library.

He entered the Faculty of Film Studies at Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, from which he graduated with honors in 1972.