Camilla Grudova is a Canadian fiction writer best known for her stories The Doll's Alphabet (2017) and the novel Children of Paradise (2022).
She holds a degree in Art History and German from McGill University, Montreal. As a writer, she made her debut with the short story "Agatha's Machine," which was published in The White Review in July 2015.
“I did not do a degree in creative writing which is perhaps unusual these days for someone my age. I have a degree in Art History and Literature (which has left me with gigantic student loans) and developed my style the old-fashioned way—lots of reading. I find my Art History background useful for writing, you learn how to describe things,” says Grudova.
Her first significant work was the short fiction collection The Doll's Alphabet. The dark and grotesque stories received good reviews from critics. It was acclaimed as feminist horror reminiscent of Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood.
Nicola Barker, the author of Darkmans, called her “Angela Carter’s natural inheritor.”
Her first novel Children of Paradise is set in a dystopian independent movie theater populated by eccentric and perhaps disturbing weirdos. The book continues Grudova’s themes of women’s identity and isolation. The Guardian notes that Camilla Grudova “has created a magnificently spiky commentary on the detrimental nature of work hierarchies and zero-hours contracts.” With its replica title, the novel is also a dark reflection of Marcel Carné’s classic 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis.
