7 modern Russian writers you should pay attention to

1. Lyudmila Ulitskaya

A geneticist by training and a writer by vocation. She worked a lot in the theater, writes scripts. She came to literature late: she published her first book in 1993, when she was 50 years old. She managed to collect many awards: the French Medici Prize, the Italian Giuseppe Acerbi Prize, the Russian Booker and the Big Book. Her works have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Ulitskaya is considered the most successful and widely read Russian writer. The heroes of her novels are most often women, the plot is based on love relationships. Some critics consider her works to be gloomy, because they all explore the themes of life and death, the destiny of a person.

What to read: Medea and Her Children, Casus Kukotsky, Daniel Stein, Translator, Jacob's Ladder.

2. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya

Writer and playwright, educated journalist and linguist. She wrote the famous trilogy about the piglet Peter, which later became a meme, and a cycle of linguistic fairy tales "Puski Byatye" in a fictitious language vaguely reminiscent of Russian. She made her debut at 34 with the story "Through the Fields".

The writer has many awards: the Pushkin Prize of the Alfred Topfer Foundation, the State Prize of the Russian Federation, the Triumph Prize and the Stanislavsky Theater Prize. In addition to her literary activities, Petrushevskaya plays in her own theater, draws cartoons, makes cardboard puppets and rap. Films and cartoons are staged according to her scripts. Petrushevskaya's works have been translated into 20 languages.

Distinctive features of Petrushevskaya's works are experiments with language, fantastic and fairy-tale plots.

What to read: "Puski beaten", "The Book of Princesses", "Number One, or In the Gardens of Other Opportunities", "Pyotr Pig".

3. Guzel Yakhina

A writer with a big name and so far only one complete bestseller. Her novel "Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes" was published in 2015 and won the prestigious "Big Book" award. Yakhina has already started writing a second work, also historical and about the Soviet era. In her own words, she is most interested in the period from 1917 to 1957.

Yakhina's prose is soulful and minimalistic: short sentences and a small amount of detail allow her to hit right on target.

What to read: "Zuleikha opens her eyes."

4. Polina Zherebtsova

Zherebtsova was born in Grozny in the mid-1980s, so each of her works is an eyewitness account of the three Chechen wars. Studies, first love, quarrels with her parents coexist in her diaries with bombings, hunger and poverty. Zherebtsova's documentary prose, written on behalf of the maturing girl Polina, reveals a person's vulnerability to the system, vulnerability and fragility of life. However, unlike other authors of a similar genre, Zherebtsova writes easily, often with humor.

In addition to literature, the writer is engaged in human rights activities. Since 2013 he has been living in Finland.

What to read: "Donkey breed", "Polina Zherebtsova's diary", "Ant in a glass jar".

5. Margarita Hemlin

A finalist for the Big Book, Russian Booker and NOS awards, Hemlin made her literary debut late. She released her first collection of short stories "The Farewell of a Jewess" in 2005, being already an accomplished editor and theater critic. Among her works are historical detective novels with an unpredictable plot and subtle humor. Like many authors, she makes sense of the past, transferring her characters to the years 1917-1950.

It would be a stretch to call Hemlin a modern author: she died in 2015, and the last book of the writer, The Seeker, was published posthumously.

What to read: "Klotsvog", "Extreme", "Investigator", "Seeker".

6. Maria Stepanova

Stepanova, the former editor-in-chief of the Internet edition OpenSpace and the current editor-in-chief of Colta.ru, is better known for her poetry, not prose. All the prizes she received are poetry: the Pasternak Prize, the Andrei Bely Prize, the Hubert Burda Foundation Prize, the Moscow Account Prize, the Lerici Pea Mosca Prize, and the Anthologia Prize.

However, with the publication of the research novel "In Memory of Memory" in 2017, one can speak of her as an original documentary prose writer. This book is an attempt to write the history of your own family, an answer to the question of whether it is possible to preserve the memory of the past. The work consists mainly of letters and postcards from the writer's ancestors, interspersed with the author's reflections.

What to read: "In memory of memory".

7. Olga Breininger

Breininger is a columnist for the literary magazine Literature and teaches at Harvard. So far I have managed to write only one novel - "There was no adderall in the Soviet Union." He was noted by many critics, entered the short and long lists of several awards. According to critic Galina Yuzefovich, the writer gave hope to Russian literature. We can check this only after the publication of Breininger's second work.

What to read: "There was no Adderall in the Soviet Union."