Russian author of short stories. Born in 1951 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Great-grandniece of Leo Tolstoy, granddaughter of Alexei Tolstoy, sister of Natalia Tolstaya, with whom she co-authored Sisters (1998). Subject of TNT: The Explosive World of Tatyana N. Tolstaya's Fiction (1996) by Helena Goscilo, an expert in Russian Women's Literature.

Author of two collections of short stories, On A Golden Porch (1987), which has been translated into at least a dozen languages, and Sleepwalker in a Fog (1992). Tolstaya's short stories have often appeared in both Russian and American journals, include Neva and the New Yorker. Lives in Moscow, but teaches at Skidmore College in New York.