Maria Ivanovna Arbatova was born in 1957. She studied in the Faculty of Philosophy in the Moscow State University, in the Dramatic Arts division of the Gorky Literary Institute, and underwent training in psychoanalysis. In the pre-perestroika years, her literary works were banned by censorship.
Today she is a member of the Moscow Writer's Union and the Union of Theatrical Workers of Russia. She is the author of fourteen plays staged in Russia and abroad, twenty books, and numerous articles in newspapers and periodicals. She has received multiple accolades for her literary and public achievements.
