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 (Russian: Людмила Стефановна Петрушевская; born May 26, 1938) is a famous Russian writer. She is also a novelist and a playwright, which means she writes plays.
Lyudmila started her career writing short stories and plays. The Soviet government often censored her work. This means they would not allow it to be published or performed. After a time of big changes in Russia called perestroika, she was able to publish many respected books.
She is well-known for her plays and novels. Some of her famous works include The Time: Night and There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby. In 2017, she wrote a book about her life called The Girl from the Metropol Hotel. Many people see her as one of Russia's best living writers. Her writing style is sometimes compared to Anton Chekhov. She has won many awards, like the Russian Booker Prize and the World Fantasy Award.
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya has many talents. She is also a singer and has worked in film animation. She writes screenplays for movies and is a painter too.
Early Life and Education
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya was born in Moscow, USSR, on May 26, 1938. She lived in the grand Metropol Hotel with her family. In 1941, her father faced difficulties with the government. He left Lyudmila and her mother. They had to leave Moscow.
Lyudmila remembers a tough childhood. She lived in group homes and on the streets. Later, she lived in shared apartments with other families. She wrote in her memoir that other children called her "The Moscow Matchstick." This was because she was very thin.
When she was nine, Lyudmila and her mother returned to Moscow. She spent the rest of her childhood there. She later went to Moscow State University. She studied journalism and graduated from the university.
Her Writing Career
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya is seen as one of Russia's most important modern writers. She is also one of the most praised writers in Eastern Europe. Publishers Weekly called her "one of the finest living Russian writers." In recent years, her work has become more famous in Western countries. Her writing style mixes new ideas with deep understanding of people. It also has funny parts, like the works of Anton Chekhov.
For much of her early career, she wrote plays more than novels. This was because it was often easier to get plays performed than books published. The government watched her closely. Soviet censors often tried to stop her plays from being shown. She once said that a literary magazine would not publish her early work. They felt it was too risky. She said, "It would have been dangerous. I would have ended up in prison." Still, she wrote many respected plays, like Andante.
In 1979, she helped write the important Russian animated film, Tale of Tales. She continued to be involved in Russian film. In 1998, she was a judge at the 3rd Open Russian Festival of Animated Film.
After Gorbachev brought changes to the government, she started publishing her novels and short stories. She had kept these works private before. Her first collection of stories, Immortal Love, made her famous very quickly. She was finally able to publish in Novy Mir, the magazine that had refused her earlier.
Other later works include the novels The Time: Night (1992) and The Number One. Both were nominated for the Russian Booker Prize. Since the late 1980s, her plays, stories, and novels have been published in over 30 languages. She has won many awards. In 2003, she received the Pushkin Prize for Russian literature. In 2004, she won the Russian State Prize for arts. She also received the Stanislavsky Award in 2005 and the Triumph Prize in 2006.
Her short story collection, There Once Lived a Woman who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby, was published in the U.S. in 2009. It became a bestseller. In 2010, it won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection. This book was the first major translation of her work by an American publisher. The stories often have mystical or allegorical parts. These parts help show the difficult living conditions in Russia during and after the Soviet era. This collection helped Lyudmila Petrushevskaya become well-known in English-speaking countries.
Other Talents
When she was in her late 60s, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya started a singing career. She wrote new words for her favorite songs. Since 2008, she has performed regularly as a cabaret singer. She sings in Moscow nightclubs and big venues. She also performs across Russia and in other countries. She is known for singing French and German jazz songs. Recently, she has started writing her own songs.
Major Works
- Immortal Love (1987)
- The Time: Night (1992)
- The Number One
- There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby (2009)
- There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved her Children Until They Moved Back In (2014)
- The Girl from the Metropol Hotel (2017)
- Kidnapped: A Story of Crimes (2023)
