H. L. Oldie

Henry Lion Oldie or H. L. Oldie (Генри Лайон Олди, Г. Л. Олди) is the pen name of Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy writers Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky.

Both authors reside in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and write in Russian.

Dmitry Yevgenyevich Gromov (Дмитрий Евгеньевич Громов; Дмитро Євгенович Громов, Dmytro Yevhenovych Hromov) was born March 30, 1963, in Simferopol, Crimea, Soviet Ukraine.

His family moved to Kharkiv when he was 11.

Oleg Semenovych Ladyzhensky (Олег Семёнович Ладыженский; Олег Семенович Ладиженський, Oleh Semenovych Ladyzhenskyi) was born March 23, 1963, in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine.

He graduated from Kharkiv Institute of Culture in 1984.

After that he became a theatre director.

It is Ladyzhensky who's responsible for H. L. Oldie's poetry, he publishes his verse separately from Oldie books as well, under his real name.

There he graduated from Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute in 1986 and worked as chemistry engineer.

Married, he has a son (born 1989).

Novelettes "The Eighth circle of Subway" (1990), "The Monster" (1990), "Tiger" (1990), "Nobody's home" (1990), "Master" (1991), "Broken circle" (1991), "Annabel Lee" (1991) published separately were included in the novellas of the cycle "The Abyss of Hungry Eyes"

Since 1991 he has been pursuing a full-time writer career.

At Eurocon 2006 in Kyiv, the European Science Fiction Society named them Europe's best writers of 2006.

Oldie collaborated with other Russophone Ukrainian writers, such as Andrey Valentinov, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko.

The "H. L. Oldie" pen name was invented as a merger of their names, Oleg and Dmitry, respectively, and the initials are derived from their family names in Cyrillic (Громов and Ладыженский).

They eventually decided that H. L. should stay for "Henry Lion".

The choice of a western-sounding pseudonym was common during the early post-Soviet era, when post-Soviet publishers and readers preferred science fiction and fantasy writing by foreign writers.

(As of August 2017)