Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet, born in Saint Petersburg (then known as Leningrad). Deeply influenced by Russian and English literature, he began writing poetry in his late teens and became a protégé of Anna Akhmatova. He was denounced in the Soviet press in 1963. Arrested and tried as a "parasite" by the Soviet government in 1964, he was sentenced to five years in a labor camp but was released after less than two years because of international protests. In 1987, Nobel Prize laureate; for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.