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Olga Slavnikova

OLGA SLAVNIKOVA

Program Bio
February 2005: UNC-Chapel Hill and The PEN American Center, New York
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Olga Slavnikova is a prose writer and literary critic. Her first novel was published in 1988 and her novel Dragonfly the Size of a Dog (Strekoza, uvelichennaya do razmerov sobaki) was a 1997 "Booker Prize" finalist. She has received numerous other literary awards, and is a member of the Union of Russian Writers, Russia’s PEN, and Russia’s Booker Committee. Her works have been translated into French and Italian. An excerpt of her novel Period was published in English as part of the Glas Press anthology, Nine of Russia’s Foremost Women Writers in 2003.

Slavnikova was born in Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, to a family of aerospace engineers, and demonstrated mathematical talent as a child, before ultimately chosing to pursue literature. She earned a degree in Journalism at the Ural University, and, during Perestroika, started her own publishing business. She has been the director of a weekly newspaper, Book Club, and of Russia's premiere literary award for young writers, the "Debut" Prize.

Career Updates

  • Slavnikova won the Russian "Booker Prize" for a second time in 2006, for her novel 2017. Read announcements on Russian Culture Net and in the Moscow Times.