Lyudmila Ulitskaya was born in 1943 in the Urals. She grew up in Moscow and studied biology at university. Since the early 1980s, she has devoted herself exclusively to literature, writing numerous plays and film scripts. Her books have been translated into French by Gallimard. Her novel "Sonietchka" received the Médicis Étranger prize in 1996. On the occasion of the Nuit des Idées 2021, she granted an exceptional interview to Christel Vergeade, attaché for books at the French Embassy in Moscow.