{{Short description|Russian translator and writer}} {{Infobox writer | name = Elena Chizhova | native_name = Еле́на Семёновна Чижо́ва | native_name_lang = ru | image = Elena CHizhova 2017.jpg | alt = The writer Elena Chizhova | caption = Elena Chizhova at a book festival in 2017. | birth_date = 1957 | birth_place = Leningrad, Soviet Union | occupation = Novelist | nationality = Russian | notable_works = ''The Time of Women'' | awards = Russian Booker Prize (2009) }}

'''Elena Semenovna Chizhova''' (Russian: Еле́на Семёновна Чижо́ва; born 1957) is a Russian writer, whose work is characterized by its reexamination of Russian history and society. She is best known for her 2009 novel ''Vremia zhenshchin'', which won that year's Russian Booker Prize. ''Vremia zhenshchin'' was translated into English in 2012 as ''The Time of Women''.

== Early life and career == Elena Chizhova was born in 1957 in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, Russia.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Elena Chizhova|url=https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/author-page/elena-chizhova|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|archive-date=2019-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128092438/https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/author-page/elena-chizhova|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Elena Chizhova|url=https://readrussia.org/writers/writer/elena-chizhova|url-status=dead|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Read Russia|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140825010123/http://readrussia.org/writers/writer/elena-chizhova|archive-date=2014-08-25}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Citation|last=Lunde|first=Ingunn|title=Jelena Tsjizjova|date=2020-05-12|url=https://snl.no/Jelena_Tsjizjova|work=Store norske leksikon|language=nb|access-date=2021-05-12}}</ref> Her father's side of the family was Jewish.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news|last=Nemtsova|first=Anna|date=2019-05-09|title=As Russia Celebrates Hitler's Defeat, Stalin's Ghost Is Haunting Putin|language=en|work=The Daily Beast|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-russia-celebrates-hitlers-defeat-stalins-ghost-is-haunting-putin|access-date=2021-05-12}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last1=Peshkova|first1=Maya|last2=Larina|first2=Ksenia|date=2012-02-05|title=Время женщин|url=https://echo.msk.ru/programs/kazino/854961-echo/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Эхо Москвы|language=ru|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120420082407/http://echo.msk.ru/programs/kazino/854961-echo/|archive-date=2012-04-20}}</ref>

After finishing secondary school, Chizhova attended Herzen University in Leningrad.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|last=Bessonov|first=B. L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lI4hPO8u3ecC|title=Dictionary of Russian Women Writers|date=1994|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-26265-4|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Kelly|first=Catriona|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fO9fAAAAMAAJ|title=An Anthology of Russian Women's Writing, 1777-1992|date=1994|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-871504-7|language=en}}</ref> Having trained as an economist,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> she taught and worked as a researcher at an economics institute, but she had an interest in literature as well, conducing literary research and writing poetry in her spare time.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> Then, in the 1990s, she worked as an English teacher and entrepreneur, and as a corporate assistant at a furniture factory.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6">{{Cite news|last=Barry|first=Ellen|date=2010-03-06|title=A Writer Invites Russia to Engage Its Painful Past|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/world/europe/06author.html|access-date=2021-05-12|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> But she continued to write, producing various poems and plays, as well as some works of literary criticism.<ref name=":5" />

In 1996, she was rescued from a cruise ship that had caught fire off the coast of Turkey. After she spent six hours stuck in her cabin while waiting to see if she would be rescued, she decided to make a major life change and become a full-time writer. "I understood that I had done a lot in my life, but none of it was right. And when we were saved, I decided to throw it all away and sit and write," she later told the ''New York Times''.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6" />

== Writing == After the cruise ship incident, Chizhova dedicated herself to writing novels and short stories.<ref name=":2" /> In 2000, she published her first novel, ''Kroshki Tsakhes'', which debuted in the magazine ''Zvezda''.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":7">{{Cite web|last=Furman|first=Yelena|date=2019-06-08|title=Torn Like a Veil Before Me: On Elena Chizhova's "Little Zinnobers"|url=https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/torn-like-a-veil-before-me-on-elena-chizhovas-little-zinnobers/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190821025355/https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/torn-like-a-veil-before-me-on-elena-chizhovas-little-zinnobers/ |archive-date=2019-08-21 }}</ref> It tells the story of a student's recollections of her brilliant and demanding teacher, and an offers a contemplation on the meaning of art.<ref name=":7" /><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Bishop|first1=Tom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U7vrDwAAQBAJ|title=The Shakespearean International Yearbook 18: Special Section: Soviet Shakespeare|last2=Joubin|first2=Alexa Alice|date=2020-06-15|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-000-07452-9|language=en}}</ref> Her subsequent novels were both nominated for the Russian Booker Prize: ''Lavra'' ("The Monastery") in 2003 and ''Prestupnitsa'' ("The Criminal") in 2005.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":8">{{Cite web|last=Furman|first=Yelena|date=2012-05-20|title=Soviet Scars: Elena Chizhova's "The Time of Women"|url=https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/soviet-scars-yelena-furmans-the-time-of-women/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128092458/https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/soviet-scars-yelena-furmans-the-time-of-women/ |archive-date=2019-11-28 }}</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite journal|last=Sorvari|first=Marja|date=2016-07-03|title=Narrating Childhood in Elena Chizhova's Vremya zhenshchin|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617427.2017.1319121|journal=Slavonica|language=en|volume=21|issue=1–2|pages=49–62|doi=10.1080/13617427.2017.1319121|s2cid=149280830|issn=1361-7427|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Then, her 2009 novel ''Vremia zhenshchin'' won that year's Russian Booker Prize,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":8" /> making Chizhova one of only five female winners in the prize's history.<ref name=":7" /> It had not been expected to win, dismissed by one critic as "cemetery erotica."<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Taplin|first=Phoebe|date=2019-09-06|title=A Soviet Becky Sharp: On Margarita Khemlin's "Klotsvog"|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-soviet-becky-sharp-on-margarita-khemlins-klotsvog/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190909024223/https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-soviet-becky-sharp-on-margarita-khemlins-klotsvog |archive-date=2019-09-09 }}</ref> Set in Leningrad, the book centers on Russian women's efforts to quietly resist and keep the memory of loved ones alive in the post-World War II period, and it explores the legacy of the Soviet Union.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":8" /> The relatively short novel features multiple intertwining points of view, creating significant narrative complexity.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":8" /> Simon Patterson and Nina Chorda translated ''Vremia zhenshchin'' into English in 2012 as ''{{Interlanguage link|The Time of Women|ru|Время женщин (роман)}}''.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":8" /><ref name=":7" /> The novel has also been adapted into a stage play.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Freedman|first=John|date=2011-07-27|title=Booker Prize-Winning Novel Comes to the Stage|url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2011/07/27/booker-prize-winning-novel-comes-to-the-stage-a8541|access-date=2021-05-12|website=The Moscow Times|language=en}}</ref>

Chizhova has since published several more novels, including ''Terrakotovaya starukha'' ("The Terracotta Old Woman") in 2011, ''Planeta gribov'' ("Mushroom Planet") in 2013, ''Kitaist'' ("The China Specialist") in 2017, and ''Povelitel' veshchei'' ("Master of Things") in 2022.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":9" /><ref name=":10">{{Cite web|title=Elena Chizhova|url=https://www.themodernnovel.org/europe/europe/russia/chizhova/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-05-12|website=The Modern Novel|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511030230/https://www.themodernnovel.org/europe/europe/russia/chizhova/ |archive-date=2021-05-11 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-03-04 |title=Елена Чижова: «Повелитель вещей». Отрывок из нового романа |url=https://snob.ru/entry/241099/ |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=Snob.ru |language=ru}}</ref> In 2018, her debut novel ''Kroshki Tsakhes'' was released in English translation by Carol Ermakova as ''Little Zinnobers''.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":7" />

Her books are frequently set in her home city of Leningrad, although while she still resides in Saint Petersburg, she does not consider herself a "Petersburg writer."<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":7" /> Her work often deals with questions of Russian society, history, and religion.<ref name=":1" /> She also describes herself as working in the tradition of Westernism in Russian literature.<ref name=":5" /> In addition to her fiction writing, she has worked as a literary journal editor and translator.<ref name=":10" /> She is the director of the PEN International center in Saint Petersburg.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-11-17|title=St. Petersburg PEN: "This City is Ours!"|url=https://pen.org/st-petersburg-pen-city/|access-date=2021-05-12|website=PEN America|language=en}}</ref>

In 2019, Chizhova drew controversy in Russia when she wrote an article, tied to her new family memoir ''Gorod, napisannyy po pamyati'', arguing that Stalin shares blame with Hitler for the Siege of Leningrad.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":11">{{Cite news|last=Kolesnikov|first=Andrei|date=2020-05-08|title=Facing a dim present, Putin turns back to glorious Stalin|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/08/facing-dim-present-putin-turns-back-glorious-stalin/|access-date=2021-05-12|issn=0190-8286}}</ref> Her memoir details her family's own experience during the siege, in which almost a million civilians died, many starving to death. In equating Stalin and Hitler, arguing that Stalin failed to help the people of Leningrad due to a personal vendetta, she was accused of "rehabilitation of Nazism."<ref name=":3" /> The backlash came from both general readers and the Russian government, with members of the Federal Assembly launching a campaign against her, and she faced a criminal investigation into her statement.<ref name=":11" />

== Personal life == Chizhova was married to the historian {{Interlanguage link|Valery Vozgrin|ru|Возгрин, Валерий Евгеньевич}}, with whom she has two daughters, until his death in 2020.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=СТЕШИН|first=Дмитрий|date=2019-05-07|title=Писательница Елена Чижова: «Блокадный Ленинград уморил Сталин»|url=https://www.kp.ru/daily/26974/4032010/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Komsomolskaya Pravda|language=ru|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507133917/https://www.kp.ru/daily/26974/4032010/ |archive-date=2019-05-07 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Baryshnikov|first1=V. N.|last2=Borisenko|first2=V. N.|last3=Chepik|first3=V. N.|last4=Plath|first4=T.|date=2020|title=Scandinavistics by the Prominent Russian Historian Professor Vozgrin|url=https://pureportal.spbu.ru/en/publications/%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%89%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%8F-%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE-%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0-%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B3%D1%80|journal=Вестник Санкт-Петербургского Университета. История|language=English|volume=65|issue=3|pages=990–1005|doi=10.21638/11701/SPBU02.2020.318|issn=1812-9323|doi-access=free}}</ref>

== Selected works ==

* ''Kroshki Tsakhes'' (2000) * ''Lavra'' (2003) * ''Prestupnitsa'' (2005) * ''Orest i syn'' (2007) * ''Vremia zhenshchin'' (2009) * ''Terrakotovaya starukha'' (2011) * ''Planeta gribov'' (2013) * ''Gorod, napisannyy po pamyati'' (2019) * ''Povelitel' veshchei'' (2022)

== References == <references />

{{authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Chizhova, Elena}} Category:1957 births Category:Russian women writers Category:Russian women novelists Category:Writers from Saint Petersburg Category:Russian translators Category:Living people Category:Russian women memoirists