Lyudmila Petrushevskaya facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya
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In New York City, November 2009.
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| Born | 26 May 1938 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship | Russia |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Genre | Fiction, drama, film, songwriting, singing, visual arts |
Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya (born May 26, 1938) is a famous Russian writer, novelist, and playwright. She started her career writing short stories and plays. At the time, Russia was part of the Soviet Union, and the government often censored her work, meaning they prevented it from being published. After a period of reform in the Soviet Union called perestroika, she was able to publish many of her books.
Petrushevskaya is best known for her plays, her novel The Time: Night, and her collections of short stories. One famous collection is called There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to ... Her Neighbor's Baby. In 2017, she wrote a book about her life called The Girl from the Metropol Hotel.
Today, she is seen as one of Russia's most important living writers. Her style is often compared to the famous writer Anton Chekhov. Her books have won many awards, including the Russian Booker Prize and the World Fantasy Award. Besides writing, she is also a talented singer, painter, and screenwriter for animated films.
Contents
Early Life
Petrushevskaya was born in Moscow, Russia, in the grand Metropol Hotel. She lived there with her family until 1941. At that time, her father, an intellectual, was labeled an enemy of the government. He left his family, and Lyudmila and her mother had to leave Moscow.
She had a very difficult childhood. She lived in group homes and sometimes on the streets. In her memoir, she wrote that other children called her "The Moscow Matchstick" because she was so thin.
When she was nine, she and her mother returned to Moscow. She later went to Moscow State University and earned a degree in journalism.
Career
Petrushevskaya is considered one of the most important modern writers in Russia and Eastern Europe. Her writing often mixes modern styles with deep understanding of human feelings, much like the author Anton Chekhov.
Writing Under Soviet Rule
For much of her early career, Petrushevskaya focused on writing plays instead of books. This was because it was slightly easier to get plays approved by government censors. Still, she was often watched by the KGB (the Soviet Union's security agency), and many of her plays were not allowed to be performed.
She once showed a story to a famous magazine, but they said it was too risky to publish. She explained, "They said they couldn’t protect me... If they had published me, I would have had a terrible fame. It would have been dangerous."
Despite these challenges, she wrote several successful plays. She also co-wrote the famous Russian animated movie Tale of Tales in 1979.
Success After Perestroika
During the 1980s, the Soviet government went through a period of change called perestroika. After this, Petrushevskaya began to publish the novels and stories she had kept private for years. Her first collection of stories made her famous almost overnight.
Her later books, like The Time: Night and The Number One, were nominated for major awards. Since the late 1980s, her work has been translated into more than 30 languages. She has won many honors, including the Pushkin Prize and the Russian State Prize for arts.
Fame in the West
In 2009, her short story collection, There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to ... Her Neighbor's Baby, was published in the United States. It became a bestseller and won the World Fantasy Award. The stories often use magical or symbolic elements to show what life was like in the Soviet Union.
A review of the book said:
"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 was followed by other books translated into English, including a 2013 collection of stories and her 2017 memoir, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel.
Other Talents
When she was in her late 60s, Petrushevskaya began a new career as a cabaret singer. She performs in Moscow and around the world, singing jazz songs and even writing her own.
She is also a skilled artist. Her paintings and drawings have been displayed in major Russian museums, such as the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.
In 2023, Petrushevskaya announced that the Russian invasion of Ukraine made her unable to continue writing. She posted on social media that the conflict had "put an end to my profession."
Works
- Immortal Love (1987)
- The Time: Night (1992)
- The Number One (2004)
- There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to ... Her Neighbor's Baby (2009)
- There Once Lived a Girl Who ... Her Sister's Husband, and He ...: 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)
See also
In Spanish: Liudmila Petrushévskaia para niños
