Viktor Petrovich Astafyev was born on May 1, 1924, in the village of Ovsanka, now located in the Krasnoyarsk Krai, to the family of Pyotr Pavlovich Astafyev and Lydia Ilyinichna Potylitsyna. He was the third child, but his two older sisters died in infancy. A few years after his birth, Pyotr Astafyev was convicted for sabotage. In 1931, when Lydia Ilyinichna went to visit her husband, the boat she was in capsized. Lydia Ilyinichna drowned, caught by a scythe on a floating boom. Viktor was seven years old then. After being released from prison, Viktor's father remarried, and the family moved to Igarka in the Krasnoyarsk Krai. When his father fell ill, the new family turned away from Viktor, and he ended up on the street. He lived in an abandoned building for several months, and then, after a serious misdeed at school, he was sent to an orphanage.

After finishing vocational school, Viktor worked at the Yenisei station as a coupler and train assembler, as well as a station duty officer. In 1942, he voluntarily went to the front, although as a railway worker he had a deferment. He underwent military training in a training automotive unit in Novosibirsk and in the spring of 1943 was sent to the active army. He served as a driver and radio operator in the howitzer artillery, and after being seriously wounded at the end of the war, he served in the internal troops in Western Ukraine.

Astafyev was awarded the Order of the Red Star, as well as the medals for Courage, for the Liberation of Warsaw, and for Victory over Germany. In battle on October 20, 1943, he restored telephone communication under fire four times, providing artillery support for the infantry.

In 1945, after being demobilized with the rank of private, Viktor moved to the Urals, to the city of Chusovoy in the Molotov region, now Perm Krai. There he worked as a locksmith, laborer, teacher, station duty officer, and storekeeper. That same year, he married Maria Semyonovna Koryakina, and they had three children: daughters Lydia and Irina, and son Andrey. Astafyev also had two adopted daughters, Anastasia and Viktoria.

Since 1951, he worked in the editorial office of the newspaper 'Chusovskoy Rabochiy', where he published his first story 'Civilian Man'. He wrote reports, articles, and stories. His first book 'Until Next Spring' was published in 1953 in Molotov, now Perm.

In 1958, Astafyev became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1959 and 1961, he studied at the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow. In 1962, he moved to Perm, in 1969 to Vologda, and in 1980 returned to his homeland, Krasnoyarsk.

From 1989 to 1991, Astafyev was a people's deputy of the USSR. In October 1990, he signed the 'Roman Address' of the participants of the conference 'National Issues in the USSR: Renewal or Civil War?'. On October 5, 1993, his signature appeared in the 'Letter of 42' in support of the forceful dispersal of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of Russia. According to poet Yuri Kublanovsky, Astafyev claimed that his signature was placed without his knowledge.