Born on the 19/09/1947 in Moscow in the family of Vladimir Jerofejew, diplomat, political assistant to Mr.Molotov and a personal interpreter of Stalin for the French language. A part of my childhood I spent in Paris where my Father worked at the Soviet Embassy. 1965-1970. Student of the Philological Faculty of the Moscow State University. 1970-1973. After graduate studies at the Institute of the World Literature in Moscow. 1973. My first bigger essay: “Marquis de Sade and the XX century” published in Moscow with a big success. 1975 PHD dissertation “Dostoevsky and the French Existentialism”. 1979 I organized a dissident almanach “Metropol” – the collective action of 23 Russian writers against the soviet censorship for which I faced a lot of repression. “Metropol” is a samizdat almanach, published later in the USA. After the political scandaI with the “Metropol”, I was kicked out of the Writers’ Union and could not publish a word in Russia until 1988. In 1988, 1989, and 1990, every summer semester I was visiting professor at the Middleberry College in Vermont, USA. 1990 first in Paris in French, then in Russia I published my first novel “Russian Beauty” (in German “Moscow Beauty”). Later on, the book was translated into more than 20 languages. In 1992, the composer Alfred Schnittke created an opera based on my longer short story “Life with an Idiot”. 1993: Russian film director Alexandre Rogogzkin made a film based on this short-story. From 1998 to 2011 I had a weekly TV show on the Cultural Channel in Russia called “Apoctifus”. In 1999, I published my novel “Encyclopedy of the Russian Soul” (recently published in Germany) which provoked a big scandal among the Russian nationalists. From 1990 until now a lot of new books and translations (in German, French, Italian etc.). In 2005, my most famous book “Good Stalin” is published first in Germany and Russia, then in many countries including China, Iran, Estonia, Ukraine, Egypt etc. In 2012, “Akimudy” was published in Germany. Russia, France etc. In 2017, the Russian composer Iraida Jusupov made an opera based on my novel “Pink Mouse”. In 2018, my book on philosophy and literature called “Schel” came out. In 2019, the Moscow publishing house Ripol published my collection of 16 books. From 2019 until now I have a literary radio program “Conspiracy of Russian classical writers”. Now I’m finishing my new book “Great Gopnik”- parallel lives of Putin and me. I have several literary awards: The Nabokov award 1992, the Gogol award 2018, the National Hungarian award 2010, the National Serbian award 2019. I have a French decoration of the Legion d’Honneur (2013), and also the French ordre d’Art et Letters (2006), a high Polish decoration Kommandor Cross (2014).
