Writer, dissident, financier, and former investment banker. Son of renowned writer and playwright Edward Radzinsky.
In 1982, while a student in the philology department of Moscow State University, he was arrested by the KGB for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. After five years of imprisonment, including time in Lefortovo Prison and logging in the Tomsk and Vladimir regions, he emigrated to the United States.
He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in international finance and worked on Wall Street. He chaired the board of directors of Rambler, Russia's largest internet company, until 2006.
The author of the novels Agafonkin and Time, Suriname, and Days of Repentance, the collections of stories The Visit and Ivan's Freedom, the autobiographical novel Random Lives, and the novels Days of Repentance and Paper Sun, published by BAbook.