Valzhyna Mort

Valzhyna Mort ( white russian Вальжына Морт / Walschyna Mort, born Мартынава / Martynawa; * 1981 in Minsk ) is a poet and translator of English and Polish literature in Washington DC lives. The Belarusian has the American nationality.

Life

Having grown up in the former Soviet Union learned Valzhyna Mort as adolescents Belarusian, which was "not taken very seriously " before 1991 and was considered " language of the common people ". She holds an English Literature degree at the State Linguistic University in Minsk and has lived in Washington DC since 2005 Mort has been writing since she was 18, now also in English, and has taught since fall 2009 poetry at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In the summer of 2013 she perceived a poetics lecturer at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

The author, who originally - after a visit to the opera Carmen - wanted to be a singer, enters their readings occasionally with an accordion. She participated in international literary events in Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden, and has received several awards. Your selection tape Factory of tears, which contains the original poems and translations by Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright and Franz Wright, is the first Belarusian- English book ever. More translations into Swedish and German followed.

A review by Ilma Rakusa describes Morts style and motifs: " [Your ] poems contain whole worlds: East-West landscapes and moods, everyday and fairy tale scenarios, visionary utopias and laconic insights, captivating images of memory and abysmal death metaphors. Not only the variety of motifs surprised, but also that of Register: . Between cheerful and melancholy, between dreamy and relentlessly directly "

Works

• я тоненькая як твае вейкі [ German: "I'm as thin as your eyelashes " ] (2005)
• Tears factory. Poems. From the White Russian by Catherine Narbutovič with the assistance of Elke Erb. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp edition, 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-12580-9 [ originally Factory of Tears ( bel. / Eng. ), 2008 ]
• Crossword. German by Katharina Narbutovič and Ulyana Wolf. Suhrkamp, Berlin 2013

Translations

• Rafał Wojaczek: Sezon [ dt " Season " ] (2007)

Awards

• Prize of the International Festival of Literature Kristal Vilenica in Slovenia ( 2004)
• Gaude Polonia scholarship (2005)
• Fellowship of the guest house of the Literary Colloquium Berlin ( 2006)
• Hubert Burda Prize for young Eastern European poetry (2008)
• Fellowship of the Literature House Graz ( 2009)