The path of the writer Yuri Koval in literature was florid. He took the first steps in this field with prose for adults. However, he gained popularity thanks to children's stories, which he began to write quite by accident.
Biography: childhood and youth
Yuri Iosifovich Koval was born in difficult pre-war time, February 9, 1938. The family lived in Moscow. Mother worked as a psychiatrist, and father worked in the police, in the criminal investigation department. His childhood years fell on the war. Cold and hunger of that period caused irreparable harm to health: Koval suffered from chronic tuberculosis of bones.
The love of books and writing to young Yuri was instilled by his school literature teacher Vladimir Protopopov. Later, he will write about him in his autobiographical novel “From the Red Gate”. Protopopov was already able to discern a talented person in Koval. To develop his abilities, he forced the future writer to write poetry. In high school, Koval and friends even created something like a secret alliance of writers.
After school, Yuri becomes a student at the Pedagogical Institute. On a parallel course, he studied with Julius Kim and Yuri Vizbor, who later became famous bards, as well as the future theater director Pyotr Fomenko. In his student years, Koval was a joker and the soul of the company. He was fond of not only literature, but also sports. Koval played table tennis with pleasure, sang songs with a guitar, went on long hikes.
During his studies at the Pedagogical Institute, Yuri writes quite a few stories. They are eagerly published in the institute's newspaper. However, Kovaly himself does not like them. Then he decided to switch to his other long-standing hobby - painting. Koval at the institute completed a course in fine art. Having received the right to teach painting, he began to prepare himself for the career of an artist.
