Please join us for a conversation with Maria Reva, author of the Booker Prize-nominated Endling.
Maria Reva writes fiction and opera libretti. She was born in Ukraine and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, receiving her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.
Maria is the author of Good Citizens Need Not Fear (2020), an award-winning set of interconnected stories that satirizes life in the final days of the Soviet Union. Her 2025 novel, Endling, was named a Best Novel of the Year by multiple organizations, including The New Yorker, NPR, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post.
Maria’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She won a National Magazine Award in 2019, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada 2020 Fiction Prize, and won the 2025 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
Please use this space to ask Maria questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Maria, thanks for being here! Please tell our group a little about yourself.
Hello Kim, and hello to the BookBrowse community!
Thank you for hosting me, it’s a pleasure to be here. I write to you from rainy Vancouver (I was born in Ukraine and immigrated at a young age). It’s a great climate for staying inside and writing. My novel, Endling is my second book. Life has been quite a whirlwind since it came out last June. I’ve been on the road a lot, both in Canada and the United States, and have enjoyed getting to meet readers. This year I’ll be traveling to New Zealand, Australia and Brazil for book events. I never expected that a book that opens with snail conservation would be getting this kind of attention. It’s about other things, of course, like the outsourcing of romance and the war in Ukraine, but I wasn’t sure how the snails would land.
I look forward to hearing from you.
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How exciting for you! When did you first get an inkling that Endling was going to be such a big hit? Did you have an “Oh my gosh” moment?
Speaking of snails, for those unfamiliar with the book, Endling beings with Yeva, a Ukrainian biologist who’s trying to rescue rare snails from extinction. She travels in an RV collecting and caring for “endlings” – the last of their species. Where did your idea for this part of the plot come from, and how did you develop Yeva?
Maria, I loved Endling so much – it was my favorite novel last year! (and I read over 50 of them a year) Your use of humor to get through times of darkness and chaos was so vital and necessary! I am wondering if you might share how you are feeling about the situation in Ukraine now.
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Oh! And I wanted to add that another reason I loved Endling so much was because it was so surprising. It was full of surprises – a surprise at every turn. Would you be able to tell us a little about your use of surprise as a writer – and how you manage to come up with so many?
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OK and one more thing – then I promise I’ll sit down and be quiet – about snails! First, thank you for a female scientist! Her quest was so utterly relatable and profound at the same time – as the world is seeming to sink into oblivion, so many of us find ourselves on similar quests, trying to save one little pocket of the world, a little pocket that we deeply love – hoping deep down that everything in the world really is interconnected somehow, and our small rescue mission will make a difference.
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I think I am still processing it, to be honest! It’s like I’ve split into two people – the public persona who wore a pretty red dress on TV and the other version of me who lives under her writing desk and forgets to wash her hair. One version is watching the other from afar.
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How I arrived at Yeva’s character is a very long and twisting story, but in summary: she is an amalgam of various bits of research and several characters who did not work out in earlier drafts. When I combined the qualities I found intriguing in those characters into one character (snail research + alternate sexuality + romance tour participation), the resulting character became someone I could walk with through an entire novel.
Also, fun fact: my mother used to drive a mobile lab in remotes parts of Canada testing soil/water toxicity levels. So the mobile lab image came from her.
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Hello Michelle! Thanks so much for your kind note; I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the book. I’m viewing the situation in Ukraine mostly through the lens of my relatives’ experience. It’s a narrow view–to zoom out into the broader situation in Ukraine feels overwhelming at times. My grandfather’s windows got blown out last week while he was sitting at his writing desk. Somehow he was spared. I guess we are all taking it day by day. I know my relatives find it heartening that people here, out West, haven’t forgotten about the war and are still talking about it, the way you and I are now.
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I follow my boredom as I write narrative. I get bored very easily. Sometimes I ask myself, what would be the least likely thing to happen right now? Even if that event doesn’t make it into the final draft, even if I dial it back, it still keeps my own attention fresh. I also combine elements that, on the surface, don’t appear to go together. Snail conservation and romance tours, for example. It’s the friction between two unexpected elements that creates opportunities for not only surprise but also resonance (it turns out there’s a lot in common between conservation work and romance tours – the creation of an environment conducive to two creatures getting closer together).
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Do you remember how snails even floated up to the top of your consciousness? That seems like such a random thing to focus on - but it certainly did work! I was really rooting for Lefty.
I found the most interesting part of the novel the section about a third of the way through written by an “Unfamous Author” (UA) also known as Maria Reva. This section feels very personal. How much of it was autobiographical? This entity appears throughout the rest of the book, too. How did you decide where and how to insert her?
I love this answer so much! (It made me laugh too) “Follow your boredom, and think of the least likely thing to happen” Brilliant, thank you
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Thank you. Taking it day by day through the lens of the personal experience of those you love seems wise (I’m in Minneapolis right now, so we are living through a tiny bit of this too, and taking it day by day, trying to help our neighbors stay safe)
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Greetings Maria!
Congratulations on all the success you have had with Endling. I have been trying to read some of the books on the Aspen Prize long list and I look forward to yours. I had never heard the word “endling” and did not know what it meant. It is a sad, but important word. And I never knew about seed banks until I read Wild, Dark Shore. I’m learning a lot about conservation through great fiction stories. Thank you for that.
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Speaking of living under her writing desk, is there another novel on the horizon? I haven’t read Endling yet, but now bringing it up to the top of my TBR list. One of my book club members read it last month and suggested it.
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Hi @Maria_Reva It surprised me how much I loved Endling and I’m looking forward to discussing it with my book club later in the year. It’s been a while since I read it but I’m wondering how you decided to place the story in time relative to the war?
Also, I have loved a lot of books by and about Ukraine. Guessing you might have read many books about Ukraine also I’d ask if you find a common thread among them, other than the war(s)?
Thanks for being here.
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Hi Maria,
I really enjoyed reading your book, but I was struck and really surprised by the format. The first part about kidnapping the future bridegrooms was really humorous. Then I got to the middle where I found everything that normally goes at the end. Why did you choose to use this format?
I have been watching the Olympics, which reminded me of the tragic Russian invasion that
started the war just after the last winter games. I was heartened to see some Ukrainian participants in Italy. My thoughts and prayers are for the safety of your family still in Ukraine.
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