Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist widely considered one of the greatest writers in history, best known for his epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Later in life he became deeply focused on questions of simple living, nonviolence, and spiritual meaning, giving away much of his wealth. His ideas about peaceful resistance directly influenced Mahatma Gandhi, who corresponded with him by letter and later named one of his own communal settlements in South Africa "Tolstoy Farm" in his honor.