Maria Stepanova
Beyond the Classics: What are the Trends in Russian Literature Today?
11 April, 2.30pm, Thames Room, EC 1, LBF
From Russia – In Verse
13 April, 8pm, Saison Poetry Library at the Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
CultureLab: An Evening with Russian Writers
14 April, 7pm, Newcastle University, Grand Assembly Rooms, Kings Walk, Newcastle NE1 7RU
Biography
Maria Stepanova is a graduate of the Literature Institute. She has worked in various media, and since 2007 has been the chief editor of the literary internet portal Openspace.ru.
Stepanova is the author of several poetry collections, winning many major national and international awards, like the German Hubert Burda prize in 2006. Her works also have appeared in many of Russia’s literary magazines including Zerkalo, Kriticheskaya Massa and Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (NLO). Her poetry has been translated into many major European languages, as well as Hebrew.
The poetics of Maria Stepanova, at once contemporary and timeless, disprove the notion that there is a crisis in traditional verse-making. Stepanova experiments with the authenticity of the author’s utterance, applying the author’s idiosyncrasies to a poetic persona. It is not only a figure of speech for her, but an act of a personal will, an attempt to break through to the subject. Stepanova’s poetic language is very distinctive: word forms pass through deformation on every level, bringing new senses, both actual and potential, to light.
Books /selected/
Проза Ивана Сидорова / Ivan Sidorov’s Proze (2008)
Счастье / Happiness (2003)
Песни северных южан / Songs of Northern Southerners (2001)
Prizes and awards
2010 - Joseph Brodsky Foundation memorial fellowship
2006 - Hubert Burda Fund Prize
2005 - Pasternak Prize
2005 - Andrei Bely Prize