The name of the writer has become a household name for admirers of detective stories, real optimists and courageous fighters with serious ailments.
The future star of the ladies' novel was born in the family of the writer Arkady Vasilyev and director of the Mosconcert Tamara Novatskaya. Father's fate was not easy. At the time of the birth of his daughter, he had not yet been divorced from his previous wife, and therefore could not marry the next one. At birth, the baby, who will become famous under the name Daria, received the name Agrippina and lived a significant part of her life with him.
Creative parents could not move to decent housing, because the first years of her life, little Grunya lived with them in a barracks. Then he was settled, and mom and dad were given such a tiny room that the daughter had to be sent to live with her grandmother for a while - there was simply nowhere to put her crib.
Despite the difficult living conditions, everything was fine with the finances at home. They allowed Grunya to hire two governesses - a German and a Frenchwoman. They almost did not speak Russian and taught the baby their languages. The humanitarian inclinations of the girl first appeared at a very young age. She quickly learned her nannies' native languages. German was especially easy for her.
The daughter impressed her parents with her curiosity, and they decided to send her to a music school as well. But after the meeting, the teachers decided: the girl has no hearing at all. The news upset the Vasiliev couple, and they began to take their daughter to the opera and ballet more often, until they noticed that they were experiencing simply unbearable longing there.
Schoolgirl
Only closer to the daughter's school years, the family finally received a large apartment in a house specially built for writers and writers. Dontsova says that the classics of Russian and Soviet literature still live there today, and then the girl's family had famous friends.
One funny incident even happened to her. The teacher at a literature lesson asked an essay: “What was Valentin Kataev thinking about when he wrote the story “The Lonely Sail Turns White”?”. Not embarrassed, the future writer went to her friend - Valentin Petrovich Kataev, and asked him a question in no uncertain terms. He gladly helped the daughter of friends, and was quite surprised when she was given a low mark for the essay, and right in the notebook they wrote in red ink that Kataev could not think about this!
At school, the girl stood out for her passion for the humanities, but the teachers who taught the exact sciences were upset. Grunya left their mathematics completely unattended. It was clear that the girl would be doing something related to literature.
Writer
While still a schoolgirl, she went to Germany with her dad - some of the writer's works were going to be published there and his presence was required. My daughter went with him to show off her German and see a new country. It was from there, inspired by a new genre for her, that she first brought a pile of detective novels in German. For the future writer, this was a real discovery, but so far she did not understand that she could write like that herself.
After school, a writing girl with a penchant for languages easily entered the journalism department of Moscow State University. And after graduating for some time, she worked first as a translator from French in Syria, and then as a journalist in Fatherland and Evening Moscow. For the first time, she tried to take up a pen and create something artistic in 1984. The story was published in the magazine "Youth", but it did not cause much enthusiasm in anyone. Daria, being a real optimist, did not despair and decided that someday she would try herself in another genre.
Love
So time went by. Daria enjoyed the interesting life of a metropolitan journalist, traveled, fell in love, was disappointed and fell in love again. For the first time she fell into the abyss of passions, being very young. In her first marriage, which the writer rarely remembers, she had an eldest son, Arkady, who has now made Daria a grandmother. The second marriage of Daria Arkadyevna is generally not mentioned anywhere.
After the first two attempts, she was no longer going to get married. “I realized that the beast Grushka Vasilyeva does not live in captivity,” the writer said about herself. But everything, as often happens, was decided by chance. Her kind neighbor wanted to marry the kindest optimist Vasilyeva. She invited me to a birthday party, warning that there would be a wonderful Sasha Dontsov, social psychologist, professor. Grunya grunted, but she came to the holiday.
"He thought: what a freak!", - says the writer. She herself, too, did not appreciate the strict appearance of a new acquaintance and was offended by the fact that he did not even look at her. Defiantly went to her apartment without waiting for the birthday cake. Only three weeks later, a neighbor without ceremony came to her in the evening with the same Sasha. They sat up on some scientific work, and since it was strictly forbidden to smoke in Alena's apartment, the idea came to go to Gruna.
“I don’t want to get married!”, - the future wife reported to Dontsova. It turned out that he just got divorced and is not going to marry "never again." They laughed at the unsuccessful matchmaking, drank tea, and remained together in this apartment forever now. In the mid-80s, they got married, and a little later their common daughter Masha appeared in the family.
There would be no happiness
She was still Grunya and was not a writer. Until one terrible day, thunder rumbled: Dontsova was hospitalized with a diagnosis that completely turned her life around. And now let Daria say that cancer is just a disease that can and should be fought - when she was given the fourth, most severe degree of cancer, the days of despair and real horror came.
Now she actively supports the “Together Against Breast Cancer” program and literally by the hand takes readers with a similar diagnosis to the hospital, makes them agree to surgery, endure chemotherapy and hope for the best. Then the inexhaustible optimism of this wise woman and her loving family helped to answer oncology with dignity. She underwent four operations, she had 14 more to come. She literally “settled” in intensive care when her husband said: “You always wanted to sit down for an affair, but you didn’t have enough time. Now you are in the hospital, you have plenty of time…”
When the visitors left, Grunya, wrapped in pipes, put a sheet of paper on some book and wrote the first sentence of her first novel - "The Cool Heirs". It took only four days, and when she returned home, she brought back the manuscripts of five novels.
Daria Dontsova
All works were accepted by the EKSMO publishing house. Before that, editors had never come across such a genre - among Russian-speaking writers, no one wrote like that. Especially for the new writer, the name "ironic detective" was coined. The writer says that to this day she has not learned how to use a computer and writes all her books by hand. She refutes the arguments of gossips accusing her of using the powers of "literary slaves" and can prove that every word of numerous novels belongs to her.
Daria Arkadyevna says that she remained Agrippina until the age of 45, and she really did not like it. All her life, Dontsova felt that this was not her name, and wanted to be called Dasha. Now, having entered the stage of stable remission and becoming a writer, she decided to change her life. And from Grunya Vasilyeva turned into Daria Dontsova.
The name of the writer is included in the Russian Book of Records as the most prolific author. She has a huge following among general readers and in the film world. Exciting serials have already been shot based on several series of detectives by Dontsova. Now the writer lives in her own house with her husband and numerous animals, whom Daria loves so much. She has two grandchildren - from both children, and she feels quite happy, an accomplished woman.
Three spouses of Elena Drapeko