Nina Berberova

Nina Berberova was born in Petrograd in 1901 to a bourgeois family. From a young age, she began writing poetry and prose. However, the events of the October Revolution and the ensuing atmosphere of terror forced her to leave Petrograd in 1922, along with the poet Vladislav Khodasevich. They first sought refuge in Prague, then in Berlin, and later lived for a time in Sorrento, Italy, before settling in Paris, where they stayed until 1950. Life in Paris was difficult for Berberova, as it was for all Russian émigrés of the time. Weary from war and poverty, she took a ship to New York, where her fortunes began to change. She became a professor of Russian literature at Yale and Princeton universities, and with the reissue of her works in French from 1985 onwards, she started gaining recognition among the general public. She passed away in 1993 in Philadelphia, USA. Her works include: "The Accompanist," "The Book of Happiness," "In the Shadow of Another," "These Letters Are Mine," among others.