The Time of Women

Yelena Chizhova is a native of St. Petersburg, the author of many books, including The Master of Things, The City Written from Memory, and Sinologist. The majority of her works take place in St. Petersburg, which defines both the atmosphere of the novels and the psychology of the characters. The novel The Time of Women was awarded the Russian Booker Prize, translated into twenty languages, and became a finalist for several foreign awards. It has become the literary basis for performances at the Contemporary Theater, the G.A. Tovstonogov Big Drama Theater, and others. Leningrad, the border of the 1950s and 1960s. A communal apartment where three lonely old women — Ariadne, Glikeria, and Evdokia — live. By the will of fate, they become the closest people to a mute girl, who communicates with them through her drawings. The story of that life, of her grandmothers, about the past that has gone but has not disappeared is told by the grown-up girl, an artist…