Maria Reva writes fiction and opera libretti. She is the author of Good Citizens Need Not Fear (Doubleday, Virago, and Knopf Canada New Face of Fiction, 2020), set in an apartment block in Ukraine. In November 2022, she was included on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s list of sanctioned Canadian citizens who are forbidden from entering Russia.
Maria’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She won a National Magazine Award in 2019 and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada 2020 Fiction Prize.
Her musical collaborations include a script for City Opera Vancouver (“Lost Operas of Mozart,” 2016) as well as two operas with composer Anna Pidgorna (“Our Trudy,” commissioned and premiered by Ad Astra Music Festival in Russell, Kansas, as well as “Plaything,” developed by Musique 3 Femmes, premiered in Berlin at the ufaFabrik in Fall 2022).
Maria was born in Ukraine and grew up in New Westminster, British Columbia. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.
Good Citizens Need Not Fear is now available in Canada (Knopf Canada), US (Doubleday), and in the UK (Virago).
Head shot credit: Matthew Prescott