Svetlana Boym was born in Leningrad, Russia on April 29, 1959. She received a bachelor's degree in Hispanic languages and literatures from the Herzen State Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad, a master's degree in Hispanic languages and literatures from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University. She became an assistant professor at Harvard in 1988.
Her work included the nonfiction books Death in Quotation Marks: Cultural Myths of the Modern Poet, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, The Future of Nostalgia, and Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea; a novel entitled Ninochka; and a play entitled The Woman Who Shot Lenin. She was also known as a photographer, with her work exhibited at galleries around the world. She died from cancer on August 5, 2015 at the age of 56.
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