​As son of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat Vladimir Erofeyev, he spent some of his childhood in Paris, which accounts for why much of his work has been translated from Russian into French, while comparatively little has been translated into English.

As son of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat Vladimir Erofeyev, he spent some of his childhood in Paris, which accounts for why much of his work has been translated from Russian into French, while comparatively little has been translated into English. His father, who was the interpreter for Molotov in the forties, wrote a very interesting book of memories; his brother is a curator at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Erofeyev graduated from Moscow State University in 1970, where he studied literature and languages. He then did post-graduate work at the Institute for World Literature in Moscow, where he completed his post-graduate work in 1973 and received his kandidat degree in 1975 for his thesis on Fyodor Dostoyevsky and French existentialism. Erofeyev's work often contains pastiches of Dostoyevsky's work and themes.

He became a literary critic, publishing works on Lev Shestov and the Marquis de Sade. He later organised his own literary magazine, Metropol, in which many of the big names of Soviet literature participated, including Vasily Aksyonov, Andrei Bitov, Bella Akhmadulina, and others. The magazine was put into circulation via samizdat, i.e., avoiding Soviet censorship. As a result, Erofeyev was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers and was banned from being published until 1988, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.

Victor Erofeyev currently resides in Moscow and frequently appears on Russian television, where he has his own program on the channel «Kultura» ("culture"); he also has a program on Radio Liberty, Moscow.

Alfred Schnittke's opera Life with an Idiot is based on his story with the same name, which he made into a libretto for the composer.

The 2012 Finnish documentary movie, "Russian Libertine", is centered on Victor Erofeyev and his view of the protests leading up to the 2012 Russian Presidential election.

On 3 October 2013 Victor Erofeyev received the Chevalier of Legion of Honour title from French Government.