Tatyana Tolstaya was born May 3, 1951, in Leningrad, U.S.S.R. (now St. Petersburg, Russia). As the great-grandniece of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy and the granddaughter of Alexei Tolstoy, Tolstaya comes from a distinguished literary family; but, according to Marta Mestrovic's interview in Publishers Weekly with the author, she hates "being discussed as a relative of someone."

Still, Tolstaya's background is undeniably one of culture and education. Her father was a physics professor who taught her two languages, and her maternal grandfather was a well-known translator. Many of her six siblings are involved in the arts, and one brother is a member of the Russian parliament. Tolstaya graduated from Leningrad State University in 1974 with a degree in classics and Russian literature. Upon graduating, she took a position as an editor at a Moscow publishing house.

When she was thirty-two, Tolstaya began to write in response...