Yanka (Ivan Antonovich) Bryl. was a Belarusian writer best known for his short stories. Prose writer, essayist, translator, children's writer, public figure. People's Writer of Belarus (1981). Honorary Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (1994). Laureate of the USSR State Prizes (1952), the Yakub Kolas State Prize of the BSSR (1982), and the Yakub Kolas Literary Prize (1963).