Московский педагогический государственный университет
Kharitonov was born in Zhytomyr, Ukrainian SSR, in 1937. He studied at the Moscow State Pedagogical University. He later worked as a teacher, executive secretary for a newspaper, editor for a publishing house, and as a writer beginning in 1969. He has also made many translations, including works by Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, Elias Canetti, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann.