Maria Rybakova is a writer and an assistant professor of Literature at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan.

She is currently in Bucharest for the launch of her recently translated book, “Quaternity: Four Novellas from the Carpathians” (Romanian title: “Cuaternitate. Patru nuvele din Carpați”), published by Junimea (Iași, 2025). The volume was translated by Marina Vraciu during their Tandem Fellowship at NEC in the 2022/2023 academic year.
The book launch will take place on Thursday, 4 December 2025, at 19.20 o’clock, at Gaudeamus Book Fair (Romexpo, B2 Pavilion).

Originally published in September 2021, Quaternity brings together four thematically linked novellas exploring obsessive relationships, stolen identities, and illusions of grandeur in the post-1989 Carpathian-Balkan region. Among the stories: an American expat in Europe appropriates the identity of a Romanian orphan in a desperate search for love; a dictator’s daughter, studying abroad in France, learns that her parents have been overthrown and are about to be executed; a minor character from a novel confronts her own insignificance; a wife informs her husband that she’s just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Maria Rybakova has been a Fellow at New Europe College three times with the following projects:

2022/2023 Tandem Author with Translator – Translator with Author Program
Translating “Quaternity: Four Novellas from the Carpathians” from Russian into Romanian with Marina Vraciu

2018/2019 Pontica Magna Returning Program
Time, Space and Body in the First Novels by Mircea Eliade and Max Blecher

2017/2018 Pontica Magna Program
Space and Mystery: Mircea Eliade’s Magical Bucharest