Ludmila Ulitskaya
Genres
Contemporary Fiction
Biography
Ludmila Ulitskaya was born in the town of Davlekanovo in Bashkiria, near Kazakhstan, in 1943. She grew up in Moscow, where she still lives, and where she studied biology at the Moscow State University. For two years she worked as a geneticist at the USSR Academy Institute in Moscow, but was dismissed in 1969 for illegally printing and distributing samizdat literature. Ten years passed before Ulitskaya found a new job, not as a scientist but as assistant at the Jewish Chamber Theatre, for which she wrote articles, programmes and synopses. Although Ulitskaya, unlike her devout great-grandfather, did not identify with Judaism, the many official taboos on the issue of Jewish consciousness during the Brezhnev era considerably inhibited her artistic style.
Ulitskaya has since become one of the most popular authors in Russia. Situated between mass culture and experimental literature, her works are typical of contemporary belles lettres. Her novels, novellas and short stories are written in a traditional style, and tell the stories of ordinary people who find their happiness and the significance of life not in serving society but in their private existences. Ulitskaya engages with the Russian classical tradition by focusing on concepts of guilt and faith and the meaning of life and consciousness. However, she constantly develops this tradition by describing characters whose lives vacillate between normality and insanity and between the real and the imaginary, and creating characters whose acts of generosity and meekness invite the reader to question certain customary assumptions about human behavior.
Ulitskaya's first novella, Sonechka (Сонечка), published in Novy Mir in 1992, almost immediately became extremely popular, and was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize. Today her writing is much admired by the general reading public and critics alike 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; new images of the body (the sexual body, handicapped body, etc.). In 2006 she published Daniel Stein, Interpreter (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 have 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 also regularly publishes commentary on social issues and is actively involved in philanthropic projects increasing access to literature.
Prizes and awards
| 2010 | Premio Bauer/Ca'Foscari |
| 2009 | Znamya Literary Prize (Dialogues with M.Khodorkovsky / Диалоги с М.Ходорковским) |
| 2009 | Nominated for the International Booker Prize |
| 2008 | Grinzane Cavour Prize (Sincerely Yours, Shurik / Искренне Ваш Шурик) |
| 2007 | The Big Book Prize (Daniel Stein, Translator / Даниэль Штайн, переводчик) |
| 2006 | Penne Prize (Kukotsky's Case / Казус Кукоцкого) |
| 2004 | Book of the Year (Sincerely Yours, Shurik / Искренне Ваш Шурик) |
| 2001 | Russian Booker Prize (Kukotsky's Case / Казус Кукоцкого) |
| 1998 | Medichi Prize |
Books
- Imago, 2010
- Daniel Stein Interpreter, 2006
- The People of Our Tsar, 2005
- Sincerely Yours Shurik, 2003
- Women's Lies, 2003
- Kukotsky's Case, 2001
- The Funeral Party, 1997
- Sonechka, 1995
Foreign Publications
In English
- The Funeral Party, Schocken, 1997
- Medea and Her Children, Schocken, 1996
- Sonechka, Schocken, 1995