Golitsyn was born on 14(1) March 1909 at an estate in the Tula guberniya. His father was prince Mikhail Vladimirovich Golitsyn (1873–1942), a member of the powerful Russian Golitsyn (or Galitzine) family, and his mother was Anna Sergeyevna, born Lopukhina (1880–1972). At various times were arrested (and later killed) his grandfather, V.M. Galitsyn, his father, his older brother Vladimir, one brother-in-law and numerous cousins.
During the repressions of the 1920s and 1930s, a large number of his relatives were targeted. Later he recalled these years in his Memoirs of a Survivor: The Golitsyn Family in Stalin"s Russia, an account of how revolution dramatically transformed life for one of Russia"s elite families. After finishing school in 1927, having decided to become a writer, he enrolled to Higher Literature Courses (later to become the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute).
After graduating in 1929, he was briefly arrested.
On 3 July 1941 he was mobilized as a topographer at the sapper troops. He made all the way to Berlin and was discharged in 1946.
After the war worked as a geodesist engineer at the State Planning Institute. Since 1959 he lived as a professional writer
He died on 7 November 1989 of a heart attack.
He is buried in the churchyard of the village Lyubets (Vladimir Oblast).
Written in secret and published only in 1990, after his death it describes the impact of the revolution upon his family, whilst also painting a picture of life in Russia as Bolshevism turned to Stalinism.
