Bulat Okudzhava (Moscow, 1924 – Paris, 1997) was a poet, novelist and singer-songwriter of Georgian and Armenian origin. In the field of music, he stood out for being one of the forerunners of what was called the "Russian songwriter" and achieved fame and recognition inside and outside the Soviet Union. Also as a writer, he achieved many successes, both for his poetic work and for his novels, which earned him, among other awards, the Russian Booker Prize in 1994. Okudzhava was a controversial author and, although his work never openly claimed political issues, in Many times it has been interpreted from a protest perspective and as a challenge to cultural authority, which prevented both his music and his poetry and prose from being officially edited and published in the U.S.S.R. Until the late 1970s, however, countless home copies of his songs and texts circulated throughout Russian-speaking countries.