Maria Galina
Genres
Contemporary Fiction, Poetry
Biography
One of the most fascinating authors to emerge in the turbulence of the 1990s, Maria Galina was born in Kalinin (now Tver) in 1958. She was brought up in Ukraine, living in Kiev until the age of ten before moving to Odessa in 1968. She later studied marine biology at Odessa University, both as an undergraduate and postgraduate.
In the course of her studies, Galina became an expert in hydrobiology and worked on several expeditions examining environmental issues, including a period researching salmon at Norway’s Bergen University. Galina has lived in Moscow since 1987.
Following her first publication in Iunost' in 1991, Galina turned abruptly away from her scientific work to become a full-time professional author. Science, however, has remained a crucial part of her writing – she has more than ten science fiction books to her name.
Galina is also a translator of American and English poetry, a notable critic and a regular columnist in several journals. As well as numerous Russian publications, she has been translated and published in Polish and English. Galina is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Novyi Mir Prize in 2005 and the prestigious Moskovskii Schet in 2006. Her most recent novel, Iramifications, received the International Portal Prize and, when released in English translation in March 2008, won the 2009 Rossica Prize for Best Translation. Galina’s writing contains strong elements of magical realism and shows consistent attention to themes of gender and the scientific world. Describing her fiction as ‘exquisite’, Izvestiya observes that Galina always ‘addresses both the elitist and the mass reader’.
Prizes and awards
| 2010 | The Portal Prize (Little Glusha / Малая Глуша) |
| 2009 | The Portal Prize, short story (V Plavnyah / В плавнях) |
| 2007 | The Portal Prize (Iramifications / Гиви и Шендерович) |
| 2006 | The Moscow Count Prize, poetry (Nezemlya / Неземля) |
| 2005 | The Novyi Mir Prize, poetry (Nezemlya / Неземля) |
| 2005 | The Portal Prize ( Iramifications / Гиви и Шендерович) |
| 2004 | Nominated for the Russian Science Fiction Prize (The Wolf Star / Волчья звезда) |
Books
- Red Wolves Red Gees, 2010
- Little Glusha, 2009
- On Two Feet, Argo-Risk, 2009
- The Time of the Vanquished, Eksmo-Press, 2007
- The Shore at Night, Forum, 2007
- Hamsters in Eglador, Forum, 2006
- Nezemlya, Arion Journal, 2005
- I Discover the World: Treasures of the Earth, Astrel, 2004
- Iramifications, 2004
- The Wolf Star, Maxaon, 2003
- A Blanket for Abaddon, 2002
- Farewell my angel, AST, 2002
- Looking out from the Darkness: The Chronicles of Leonard Kalganov the Ethnographer, Eksmo-Press, 2002
- All the fountains of the deep, Eksmo-Press, 1999
- Gladiators of the Night, Eksmo-Press, 1997
- Beacon, SPM, 1994
- I see light, 1993
Foreign Publications
In English
- Iramifications, 2009