His books are multi-layered postmodernist (disputed)[2] texts fusing elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies while carrying conventions of the science fiction genre.
In 1979, Pelevin graduated from an elite high school with a special English program located on Stanislavskogo Street in the centre of Moscow, now Kaptsov Gymnasium #1520.
[10] Pelevin has no current or past public social media accounts (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, VKontakte) [11] In December 2018, the media reported that the writer Victor Pelevin registered in the register of individual entrepreneurs in the territorial office of the Pension Fund in Moscow.
[12] In 1989, Pelevin attended Mikhail Lobanov's creative writing seminar at Maxim Gorky Literary Institute.
[10] While studying at the Institute, Pelevin met the young novelist Albert Egazarov and the poet Victor Kulle, later a literary critic.
Egazarov and Kulle went on to found a publishing house, first called The Day, then The Raven and Myth, for which Pelevin has edited three volumes of Carlos Castaneda's work.
In 1989, he also began to work in the journal Nauka i Religiya (Science and Religion), where he edited a series of articles on eastern mysticism.
[citation needed] The book received a number of awards including Germany's Richard Schoenfeld Prize.
[19] In 2003, Pelevin published the novel The Dialectics of Transition Period from Out of Nowhere to Nowhere or DTP (NN), receiving the Apollon Grigoryev Prize in 2003 and the National Bestseller award in 2004.
Literary critics have noted Pelevin's postmodernist and absurdist styles, which incorporate Buddhist motifs, esoteric traditions, and satirical science fiction.
Pelevin is known for not being a part of the literary crowd, rarely appearing in public or giving interviews and preferring to communicate on the internet.
For instance, it has been suggested that the writer does not exist and Pelevin is actually a code name for a group of authors or even a computer.
[23] Pelevin has permitted all of his texts in Russian predating 2009 (except P5: Farewell songs of the political pygmies of Pindostan) to be published on the Internet for non-commercial use.
In December 2010, he wrote a collection of novels and short stories "Pineapple Water for the Fair Lady", which was in the long list of the Russian Literary Award "Big Book" (season 2010/11).
Pelevin's prose, creating a mythologized and multi-layered picture of reality, is built on the interweaving of the fantastic and the real, the historical and the fictional.
Buddhist symbolism neighbours in it with occultism, European philosophy with mysticism, didacticism with parody, and active presence of realities of modern culture with an appeal to archaic consciousness.
[2] Pelevin's works are characterized by the mixing of elements of different genres — adventure novel and parable, fairy tale and anecdote, pamphlet and utopia.
[3] In a conversation with BOMB Magazine, Pelevin named Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita as an early influence on his reading, saying, "The effect of this book was really fantastic.