Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1 April 1809 – 4 March 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin.

Gogol used the grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works "The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", and "Nevsky Prospekt". These stories, and others such as "Diary of a Madman", have been noted for their proto-surrealist qualities. According to Viktor Shklovsky, Gogol used the technique of defamiliarization when a writer presents common things in an unfamiliar or strange way so that the reader can gain new perspectives.

His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, culture, and folklore. His later writings satirized political corruption in contemporary Russia (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls), although Gogol also enjoyed the patronage of Tsar Nicholas I.

The novel Taras Bulba (1835), the play Marriage (1842), and the short stories "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", "The Portrait", and "The Carriage" are also among his best-known works.

Many writers and critics have recognized Gogol's deep influence on Russian, Ukrainian, and world literature. His influence was acknowledged by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Franz Kafka, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Nabokov, Flannery O'Connor, and others. Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé famously said: "We all came out from under Gogol's Overcoat."