Anna Alfredovna Starobinets (Russian:Анна Старобинец, born 1978) is a Russian writer and scriptwriter who has been called the "Russian Queen of Horror". She has published novels, short stories and children's books, and describes herself as writing "horror and supernatural fiction for adults, and also fairy and detective stories for children".

Personal life

Starobinets was born in Moscow in 1978. Her husband, writer , died in 2017, after which she had "

writer's block Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...

" for 18 months. She has two children, and a

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. She has said that her favourite book is Neil Gaiman's '' American Gods''.

Writing

Starobinets' first published work, the short story collection ''An Awkward Age'' (2010), was a finalist in the Russian National Bestseller Prize. It comprises "chilling short stories set in the streets of Moscow and various creepy parallel worlds", and has been translated into seven languages. It has been described as "one of the most stunning debuts to come out of Russia since Victor Pelevin: hip, funny, angry, and dark as hell" and as "an insightful take on the contemporary condition of man—in Russia and further afield". ''Catlantis'' (2015) was her first children's book to be translated into English, and was listed in

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

's 2015 "Best Christmas books for children" and described by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' as "a madcap and highly original adventure". It was translated by Jane Bugaeva, who also translated ''In the Wolf's Lair''. Starobinets describes ''Look At Him'' (2017) as an "autobiographical non-fiction novel about the loss of an unborn baby in Russia". She has written a four-book children's series ''The Beastly Crimes books'', which have been published in English as ''In the Wolf's Lair'' (2018), ''A Predator's Rights'' (2019), ''Claws of Rage'' (2019) and ''The Plucker'' (2019).

Selected publications (translated into English)

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References

External links

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Full text of story "I'm Waiting" from ''An Awkward Age''
with interview {{DEFAULTSORT:Starobinets, Anna 1978 births Living people 21st-century Russian women writers 21st-century Russian novelists 21st-century Russian short story writers Russian horror writers Russian children's writers Russian women children's writers