Oleg Yuriev died at the age of 58

The writer and translator Oleg Yuriev died, he died on the night of Thursday at the age of 58 years. This was reported by the criminal editor.

"With Oleg Yuriev we all lose a wonderful author – and literature has lost a great and tireless champion for their cause," said a spokeswoman for the editor.

The novelist, lyricist, playwright and German-Russian translator is devoted in his works about anti-Semitism. As a chronicler, he has also written on world literature at "Tagesspiegel". "He wanted to defend poetry and literature against the layman and the everyday," according to the publisher.

The son of a university professor and a violinist was born in Leningrad in 1959. In 1991 he moved with his family to Frankfurt-on-Main. Yuriev was married to the writer and poet Olga Martynova.

He published in Russian and German. His works include the novels "Frankfurter Taurus", "Walks under the crescent moon", "The new Golem" or "The war of children and the elderly" and "The Russian cargo ship". Last year, his novel Unknown Letters was published. In 2010, he received the Hilde Domin Prize for literature in exile from the city of Heidelberg, worth 15,000 euros.