Lyudmila Petrushevskaya

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya (; born 26 May 1938) is a Russian writer, novelist and playwright. She began her career writing short stories and plays, which the Soviet government often censored and published several well-respected prose works following perestroika. She is considered one of Russia's premier living literary figures, having been compared in style to Anton Chekhov Her works have won several accolades, including the Russian Booker Prize, the Pushkin Prize, and the World Fantasy Award.

Early life Petrushevskaya was born in Moscow, USSR, on 26 May 1938, in the stately Metropol Hotel. She lived there with her family until 1941, when her father, a Bolshevik intellectual, was declared an enemy of the state. He abandoned Petrushevskaya and her mother, who were forced to flee the city for Kuibyshev (now Samara). In recent decades, her work has become increasingly well-known in the West. Her writing combines postmodernist trends with the psychological insights and parodic touches of writers such as Anton Chekhov. Other later works include the novels The Time: Night (1992) and The Number One, both short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize. Since the late 1980s, her plays, stories and novels have been published in more than 30 languages, and she has earned several accolades. In 2003, she was awarded the Pushkin Prize in Russian literature by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Germany. She was additionally awarded the Russian State Prize for arts in 2004, the Stanislavsky Award in 2005, and the Triumph Prize in 2006.

There Once Lived a Woman who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby, a short story collection, was published in the U.S. by Penguin Books in October 2009 and became a New York Times Book Review bestseller in December. In 2010, it won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection. The first major translation of her work by an American publisher, the stories often contain mystical or allegorical elements illuminating bleak Soviet and post-Soviet living conditions. The collection of stories has been well reviewed, buttressing Petrushevskaya's reputation in the English-speaking world. An article in Dissent called the collection "a striking introduction to the author's work."

"Petrushevskaya's stories could easily be read as bleak grotesques, populated by envious neighbors, selfish adolescents, and parents who overcompensate with exaggerated love. But ultimately, Petrushevskaya's skillful juxtapositions yield glints of light. Resilience and ingenuity thread through the hardship, whether through forgiveness or love. Such traces of humanity are starker—and brighter—because of the darkness surrounding them."

This collection was followed in 2013 by a second English language book, There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself, and the 2017 memoir The Girl from the Metropol Hotel. According to Viv Gruskop, she has also responded to her fame by stating, "It has nothing to do with me."

Works Immortal Love (1987) The Time: Night (1992) The Number One (2004) There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby (2009) There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories (2013) There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved her Children Until They Moved Back In (2014) The Girl from the Metropol Hotel (2017) The New Adventures of Helen : Magical Tales (2021) Kidnapped: A Story of Crimes (2023)