Also: Даниил Гранин Daniil Alexandrovich Granin (born Daniil Alexandrovich German) was an author born in the former Soviet Union. He started writing in the 1930s when he was still an engineering student at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute. After completing his graduation Granin began working as a senior engineer at an energy laboratory and soon after the war broke out, he volunteered as a soldier. One of the first widely praised works of Granin was a short story about graduate students, titled Second Varient. It was published in the journal Zvezda in 1949. Granin continued to study engineering and working as a technical writer until success knocked on the door in the form of Those Who Seek; a novel inspired from his life as an engineer. The book talked about the overly bureaucratic Soviet system which tended to stifle new ideas. Granin has worked as a board member in the Leningrad Union of Writers and is a winner of many medals and honors including the State Prize for Literature in 1978.