Olga Grushin (born 1971) is an American novelist.
Born in Moscow, Russia to the family of Boris Grushin, a prominent Soviet sociologist, [1], she spent most of her childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia[2]. She was educated at Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow State University, and Emory University. In 1989 she received a scholarship to Emory University, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1993. She was naturalized in 2002, but still keeps the Russian citizenship[3]. Grushin has worked as an interpreter for President Jimmy Carter, a cocktail waitress in a jazz bar, a translator at the World Bank, a research analyst at a Washington, DC law firm, and, most recently, an editor at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.
Her first novel, The Dream Life of Sukhanov written in English, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2006, won the 2007 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, as well as a Top Ten Books of 2006 choice by the Washington Post. It was reviewed by poet Karl Kirchwey in 2006 writing in the Chicago Tribune.[1] The novel is about an artist–turned–party official working for the communist media as an art critic named Sukhanov whose "past catches up with him during the last days of the Soviet Union."[1] Kirchwey wrote:
| “ | Seldom has a first novel so perfectly captured a historical moment that seems most real because it resonates with the disaster of an individual life. There is no escape for Sukhanov, and no going back: There is none for any of us. Time sees to that.--Karl Kirchwey in 2006 describing The Dream Life of Sukhanov[1] | ” |
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Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2006. PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000165313.