Maria Reva

Maria Reva is a Canadian writer of Ukrainian descent.^[1][2] She is most noted for her short story collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear.^[3]

Reva at the 2025 Texas Book Festival

Life

Maria Reva was born in Ukraine, and lived in Kherson until she was 7 years old. In 1997 Reva moved to Canada with her family and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia.^[4] She is an MFA graduate of the University of Texas.^[1] Good Citizens Need Not Fear, her debut collection, was based in part on family stories of life in Soviet-era Ukraine.^[5] In 2025, her debut novel Endling was published.^[6][7]

Apart from writing fiction, Reva writes librettos for operas working with various composers, including her sister, Anna Pidgorna.^[1]

Her work has been published in The Atlantic, McSweeney's and the Best American Short Stories anthologies.

Books

• Good Citizens Need Not Fear. New York: National Geographic Books. 2021-02-09. ISBN 978-1-9848-9758-9.
• Endling. New York: Doubleday Books. 2025. ISBN 978-0-385-54531-0. ^[8][9]

Awards and nominations

• 2018: RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers for the short story "The Ermine Coat",^[10] republished in Good Citizens Need Not Fear
• 2019: National Magazine Award for Fiction, for the short story "Unsound",^[11] republished as the novelette "Little Rabbit" in the collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear^[12]
• Good Citizens Need Not Fear was considered for several awards:
  • 2020: A shortlisted finalist for the 2020 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize^[13]
  • 2020: Shortlisted for the Canadian Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
  • 2022: Recipient of the Canadian Kobzar Literary Award
• Endling:
  • 2025: Long-listed for the Booker Prize^[14]
  • 2025: Winner of the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize^[15]