Her parents worked in the Supreme Court of the USSR. After the breakup of the family, Maya was raised by her father. She graduated from the Moscow Engineering College (1946), worked in a design bureau and as a foreman at the ZIS, studied in absentia at the Literary Institute (1949-1954). She traveled a lot around the country as a correspondent for Moscow publications.
Her first story was published in 1954, but the story "Nastya's children" (1957) brought her fame. Major works - the novels "As long as I live - I hope" (1986) and "Justification of Life" (1999, in the magazine "Moscow")
In the sixties, she began writing plays. The first - "Anna" - was written by order of Boris Lvov-Anokhin for the Drama Theater. K.S. Stanislavsky. The performance was a success, it went on for several years.