Maria Semyonova is a writer who can be safely called one of the "pillars" of Slavic fantasy. An excellent Slavic historian, translator, laureate of many literary awards.
Biography
Semenova was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) on the first day of November 1958. Both parents were scientists, the family always read and discussed smart topics. Therefore, Maria began to read early and had an irrepressible imagination, telling her loved ones stories that were born in her head even before she learned to write.
Parents were not serious about their daughter's "creativity", but in the eighth grade she got her hands on a book describing the conquests of the Normans in 1066. From this began a real passion, first for the history of the northern peoples, and then for the past of the Slavs in general.
After school, Semyonova did not dare to choose literary activity for herself, and yielding to the persuasions of her parents, in 1976 she went to receive higher education at LIAP, having received the profession of an engineer. It was during her student years that Semyonova's famous story "The Lame Blacksmith" was written.
Career
At first, writing remained only Mary's hobby. At first she worked as a software engineer for about ten years, and she never regretted it. And yet her stories, novels, historical works and stories were periodically born, but so far put aside.
In 1989, Semenova's first book was published in Children's Literature, followed by the second, already in the more serious Lenizdat, and in 1992 Maria finally leaves her job at the Research Institute and leaves for the position of a translator and is engaged in translating Western fiction into Russian. in a book publishing house.
Semenova was outraged by the monotony and clichés that reigned in these books, designed for a "wide circle of readers", tired of the monotonous orcs, elves and gnomes scattered across the pages of absolutely any fantasy, and then she decided to combine in her books Slavic mythology with the traditions of the genre and historical knowledge …
The legendary "Wolfhound" was born with difficulty. In order to reliably depict the scenes of clashes, the writer was engaged in hand-to-hand combat for a long time in order to understand the topic of magic in more detail - she attended the school of psychics, studied ancient navigation, was engaged in sailing and horse riding "To know what I am writing about."
She is also the author of the historical encyclopedia "We are the Slavs", in which she popularly stated everything that scientists learned about the history of the Slavic tribes, having done an enormous amount of work.
In 1995, the first book of the "Wolfhound" cycle was published and became a real shock for fans of science fiction. Semenova wrote his story further, focusing on six books, and also published other novels and stories in the genre she created, which includes elements of Celtic, Scandinavian, Slavic and Germanic history and mythology.
Maria Vasilievna Semyonova was impatiently awaiting the adaptation of the story of her beloved character, but although the film about Volkodava became one of the leaders in distribution, she was completely disappointed with him, saying that the book was "simply castrated."
Personal life
In 2018, Semenova celebrates her sixtieth birthday. She has many friends and family, has a dog and favorite literature. But, unfortunately, Maria does not have a family. Although with her life full of constantly changing hobbies, this, perhaps, does not matter.
