Physically unattractive, lanky Sonechka with her skinny legs and flat bum, has for defensive reasons been a bookworm since the age of seven. Only when she is twenty-seven is she discovered, working in the basement of a Siberian library by artist Robert Victorvich who, already internationally renowned, returned to Russia in the early 1930's only to be exiled to the labour camps. When in Robert's old age a new romance invades their marriage, Sonechka reveals unexpected reserves of womanly strength. Sonechka is a novel whose unconventional and understated heroine will delight the English-speaking world. Sonechka was short-listed for the Booker Russian Novel Prize and has been enthusiastically received in French, German, and Italian translations. It has been awarded the Medici Prize for foreign fiction in France and the Penne Prize in Italy.
Author
RUS: Людмила Евгеньевна Улицкая Lyudmila Ulitskaya is a critically acclaimed modern Russian novelist and short-story writer. She was born in the town of Davlekanovo in Bashkiria in 1943. She grew up in Moscow where she studied biology at the Moscow State University. Having worked in the field of genetics and biochemistry, Ulitskaya began her literary career by joining the Jewish drama theatre as a literary consultant. She was the author of two movie scripts produced in the early 1990s—The Liberty Sisters (Сестрички Либерти, 1990) and A Woman for All (Женщина для всех, 1991). Ulitskaya's first novel Sonechka (Сонечка) published in Novy Mir in 1992 almost immediately became extremely popular, and was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Award. Nowadays her works are much admired by the reading public and critics in Russia and many other countries. Her works have been translated into several languages and received several international and Russian literary awards, including the Russian Booker for Kukotsky's Case (2001). Lyudmila Ulitskaya currently resides in Moscow. Ulitskaya's works have been translated into many foreign languages. In Germany her novels have been added to bestseller list thanks to features of her works in a television program hosted by literary critic Elke Heidenreich.
