Russia
Maria Stepanova

Foto: Gleb Morev

Maria Stepanova (b. 1972) is a poet, essayist, and journalist. She is the author of ten poetry collections and two books of essays, and a recipient of several Russian and international literary awards, including the prestigious Andrey Bely Prize and Joseph Brodsky Foundation Fellowship.

Her poems have been translated into many languages, including English, Italian, German, French, and Hebrew. She took part in a number of Russian and international literary festivals and programs focusing on modern poetry. Her opinion pieces on the current political and media landscape in Russia have been published in Russian, English
and German.

Her novel Pamiati pamiati (In Memory of Memory) that blends memoir, documents, and essays into an epic narrative, came out in Russian in November 2017 and received the Big Book Prize in December 2018. The book was published in German (Suhrkamp, 2018), and is forthcoming in English, French, Italian, Chinese and a number of other languages.
 
Apart from publishing as a poet and essayist, Maria Stepanova, from 2007 through 2012, was the founder and editor-in-chief of OpenSpace.ru, an independent online daily devoted to culture and society.

In 2012 she, along with a few ex-members of the OpenSpace team, launched a new online resource, COLTA.RU, the only independent crowd-funded media project that exists in Russia today. It covers cultural, social, and political life in Russia and in the world; it attracts an audience of 600,000 unique visitors per month.