Maria Galina was born in Kalinin (now Tver) and grew up in Ukraine. She started publishing fiction in the 1990s under the pen name Maxim Golitsyn. Two of her novels, Little Boondock and Mole-Crickets, were nominated for the Big Book Award in 2009 and 2012. She is also a prize-winning poet and a literary critic, as well as a regular contributor to the literary journal Novyi Mir. Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, she has lived in Odesa.