Maxim Gorki

Gorki, Maxim (Alexey Maximovich Pyeshkov; 1868–1936), Russian author. His pen name is the Russian word for bitter. Gorki's works, noted for their stark naturalism, include the play The Lower Depths (1902), the novel Mother (1906), and the autobiographical trilogy Childhood (1913), In the World (1916), and My Universities (1923). Gorki was exiled to the United States after the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905. He returned to Russia in 1914. A personal friend of Lenin, he became head of the state publishing house after the 1917 revolution, until 1921, when he went abroad again. He returned in 1928 and became a supporter of the Stalin regime. Many consider him the founder of the literary style called socialist realism.