Tatjana Tolstaja

Tatjana Tolstaja was born in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia, in 1951. She studied Classical Philology in Leningrad. Thereafter she briefly worked as an editor before going to Moscow to work as an author. Her first collection of stories (1987; German “Stelldichein mit einem Vogel,” 1989) was a great literary success which turned her into the Soviet Union’s most well-known author overnight. In 1989 she left Moscow and went to the U.S. In the 90s she taught at Princeton University and at Skidmore College, both in New Jersey, while writing numerous essays on Russian literature and politics for magazines like “The New York Review of Books.” Some of the essays were critical, others humorous. Twenty of these essayistic texts were published in the U.S. under the title “Pushkin’s Children. Writings on Russia and Russians” in 2003. In 2000 she returned to Russia. Within a month she completed her first novel “Kys,” which she had already started to work on 14 years earlier in 1986.

In “Kys” Tatjana Tolstaja sketches the dismal, bizarre world of a future Russia. This realm is ruled by a dictator and populated by misshapen people and mutations, who live in fear of the cruel creature Kys. Owning books is not allowed, but for the protagonist Benedikt reading is a drug. Tolstaja unfolds the fairytale-like magic of her narrative technique, refers to Russian narrative traditions, plays with old Cyrillic letters, invents new words, indulges in literary allusions, and in addition to Gogol, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Pushkin also cites other great writers of world literature. “I incorporated the texts into my book which unconsciously came up while I was writing.”

In addition to “Kys” (2003) in German several books of stories have been published: “Stelldichein mit einem Vogel” (1989), “Sonja” (1991), and “Und es fiel ein Feuer vom Himmel” (1992). Not only as a writer and essayist does Tatjana Tolstaja comment critically and ironically on the state of her country but as an anchorwoman as well.

She lives in Moscow, New York, and St. Petersburg.

© international literature festival berlin

Stelldichein mit einem Vogel
Luchterhand
Frankfurt/Main, 1989
Übersetzung: Sylvia List

Sonja
Luchterhand
Frankfurt/Main, 1991
Übersetzung: Sylvia List

Und es fiel ein Feuer vom Himmel
Rowohlt
Berlin, 1992
Übersetzung: Sylvia List

Reka Okkervil
Podkova
Moskva, 1999

Den
Podkova
Moskva, 2001

Notsch
Podkova
Moskva, 2001

Isjum
Podkova
Moskva, 2002

Kys
Rowohlt
Berlin, 2003
Übersetzung: Christiane Körner

Krug
Eksmo
Moskva, 2003

Pushkin’s Children
Houghton Mifflin
Boston, 2003
Übersetzung: Jamey Gambrell

Belye steny
Eksmo
Moskva, 2004

Ne kys
Eksmo
Moskva, 2004

Schenskij den
Eksmo
Moskva, 2006

Übersetzer: Christiane Körner, Silvia List