The Associated Press

MOSCOW

Russian author and editor Grigory Baklanov has died at the age of 86.

The Moscow Writers Union says Baklanov died in Moscow on Wednesday, but didn't specify the cause of his death.

Baklanov wrote fiction books which tapped into his World War II experience. Baklanov was recruited into the Red Army before he turned 18. He was badly wounded in combat and decorated for valor.

Baklanov's works such as "An Inch of Land," "Forever Nineteen," "July 1941" and "The Dead Shouldn't Be Shamed" have been widely published in the former Soviet Union and abroad. Baklanov won the prestigious State Prize of the Soviet Union.

During Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, Baklanov played a prominent role as the editor of Znamya, a leading literary monthly.