Born in 1943, Ultiskaya grew up in Moscow, the daughter of Jewish parents, and entered the workforce in the 1960s as a geneticist, before a run-in with the KGB closed the lab where she worked. This episode was later fictionalised in her novel Big Green Tent, one of many novels, plays and short stories that depict the lives of private individuals getting by within the Soviet machine. Through these works – notably Sonechka, Medea and Her Children, The Kukotsky Enigma, Daniel Stein, Interpreter and Jacob’s Ladder – she has amassed numerous literary awards, including Russia’s most prestigious book prizes, France’s Prix Medicis and a nomination for the Man Booker international prize. In 2020, Ulitskaya had the same odds (6/1) as Margaret Atwood and Maryse Condé to win the Nobel.

Frances Riddle: You’ve published more than ten books, won some major literary prizes, and you’re the most translated Argentine author after Borges and Cortázar. In short, you’ve had a very successful literary career. How did you get your start as a writer? What first put you on this path?Piñeiro’s writing is clean and easy to follow whilst still being powerful. There are no great wordy sentences or complicated metaphors, everything that needs to be said, is, and with just the right amount of words. It’s exactly the kind of writing that keeps me reading. ⁠

The story also involves three issues in which the Catholic church dogma puts lives under great strain, namely abortion, suicide and euthanasia, and all of this is at least superficially within the narrative framework more usually associated with crime fiction.The rights to bodily autonomy become even more pronounced in the jaw-dropping final section of this novel. Claudia Piñeiro has been a prominent activist for abortion rights in Argentina, which did not legalize until December of 2020, and Elena Knows becomes a powerful look at the lives of those denied options facing a pregnancy not only against their will but from an act of violence and degredation. Dr. Kate Manne has written extensively on bodily control of women, particularly in her book Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women where she examines how misogyny is used to police women’s bodies and also demonize any who reject a patriarchal control: As with the very best crime fiction, her novels often feature incisive social and historical scrutiny. Her third novel for adults, Elena Knows, is a perfect example: a complex character study of three women affected by their society’s oppressive rules, within a murder mystery. Elena, an elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease, is investigating the death of her daughter, who has been found dead in a church belfry. The case has been hastily closed and deemed a suicide, but Elena is convinced it was murder. The city is brimming with surreal and incredible stories, he adds. “You could go to a funeral and think you’re going to get an interesting story for your writing. You will leave with so many that your publisher will say, ‘Please! Not so much.’ Luanda writes far better than you can write.”

If you are reading this before August 31, 2021 then there is still time to register for the book launch event for Elena Knows via https://mailchi.mp/7a049f1c935b/elena... or https://charcopress.com/events/2021/8... the piercing fresh writing was as excitingly suspenseful as was the inquiry of a murder/ or/ suicide. reflective mother/daughter relationship [although very compelling- it didn’t ‘personally’ kill me, as did “Cold Enough For Snow”, by Jessica Au] He didn't leave but he became quite subdued after that. And while we went on to discuss further aspects of one of the main themes in Elena Knows, the Parkinson's theme, and spoke about the dilemma of being a carer for a parent with the disease, we all seemed of one mind in avoiding any further mention of the other important theme, abortion. I wanted to write a book about such big and vague issues that I felt I needed to locate them in a place that could be contained,” she adds. “I write about love and death, and how they are connected – it doesn’t get more diffuse than that.” Philip OltermannWhere have you seen these rights curtailed? Who have you seen defend these rights and how have they defended these rights for themselves and others? What do you believe? Mother-daughter relationship And at the same time, Rita has in many ways become the mother to Elena and will have to do even more for her own mother as the disease progresses. She is physically caring for her mother, cutting her toenails,