Viktor Erofeev is a Russian writer, essayist, literary scholar, one of the most prominent and provocative authors of contemporary Russian literature. He is the author of the bestsellers Russian Beauty, Encyclopedia of the Russian Soul, Life with an Idiot, Good Stalin, and Der Große Gopnik (2023). He is the initiator of the legendary almanac Metropol (1979), which turned the Soviet literary scene upside down.
Since 2022 he has been living in Germany. His work has been published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, The New Yorker, Le Monde and other leading international publications. Performances and operas based on his plays and texts have been staged, including The Great Gopnik at the Freiburg Theatre (2024) and Alfred Schnittke's opera Life with an Idiot (1991), directed by Kirill Serebrennikov in Zurich (2024). Laureate of the French Order of Arts and Literature (Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) and the Order of the Legion of Honor (Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur).