Lyudmila Ulitskaya
Lyudmila Evgenevna Ulitskaya (Людмила
Евгеньевна Улицкая) is a critically acclaimed
modern Russian novelist and short-story writer.
She was born in the town of Davlekanovo in
Bashkiria in 1943. She grew up in Moscow where
she studied biology at the Moscow State
University.
Having worked
in the field of genetics and biochemistry,
Ulitskaya began her literary career by joining
the Jewish drama theatre as a literary
consultant. She was the author of two movie
scripts produced in the early 1990s: The Liberty
Sisters (Сестрички Либерти, 1990) and A Woman
for All (Женщина для всех, 1991).
Ulitskaya's
first novella, Sonechka (Сонечка), published in
Novy Mir in 1992, almost immediately became
extremely popular, and was shortlisted for the
Russian Booker Award. Today her writing is much
admired by the general reading public and
critics in Russia and many other countries. A
number of interlinked themes dominate her works:
the need for religious and ethnic tolerance; the
problem of the intelligentsia in Soviet culture;
gender and family issues; everyday life as a
literary subject; and new images of the body
(the sexual body, handicapped body, etc.). In
2006 she published Daniel Stein, Translator (Даниэль
Штайн, переводчик), a novel dealing with the
Holocaust and the need for reconciliation
between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Her
works have been translated into several
languages and received several international and
Russian literary awards, including the Russian
Booker for Kukotsky's Case (Казус Кукоцкого)
(2001). (Ulitskaya was the first woman to
receive this distinguished prize.) She regularly
publishes commentary on social issues and is
actively involved in philanthropic projects
increasing access to literature. Lyudmila
Ulitskaya currently resides in Moscow.
Ulitskaya's
works have been translated into many foreign
languages. In Germany her novels have been added
to bestseller list thanks to features of her
works in a television program hosted by literary
critic Elke Heidenreich. A number of her novels
and short stories have been translated into
English.
