Liabiba Faizovna Ikhsanova

Born Aug. 23, 1923, in the village of Srednie Shuni, Viatskie Poliany Raion, Kirov Oblast. Soviet Tatar children’s writer. Member of the CPSU since 1945.

The daughter of a village school teacher, Ikhsanova graduated from the geography department of the University of Kazan in 1948. Her first book, On the Serebrianka River, appeared in 1948 (Russian translation, 1953). Other significant works include the science fiction novella Seven Days in the Earth (1949; Russian translation, 1959); the collections of stories Bright Dreams (1952) and Street of the Cosmonauts (1963); and the novellas Niiaz (1959), Niiaz in School (1961), The Willows Are Bending (1964), A Mother’s Diary (1968), and Little Spark (1969).