Valzhyna Mort

Valzhyna Mort

Valzhyna Mort is an electrifying young poet from Belarus (former Soviet Union) known for her vibrant performances.

Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort, whom the Irish Times called “a risen star of the international poetry world,” is famed throughout Europe—and now the U.S.—for her vibrant reading performances. Mort, age 28, has the distinction of being the youngest person to ever be on the cover of Poets & Writers magazine. She was born in Minsk, Belarus (former Soviet Union) and now lives in Washington D.C.

Mort writes in Belarusian at a time when efforts are being made to reestablish the traditional language. She reads her poems aloud in both Belarusian and English. Mort made her American debut in 2008 with a poetry collection Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press), co-translated by the husband-and-wife team of Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright, who calls Mort’s poetry “electrifying.” .

Mort received the Crystal of Vilenica award in Slovenia in 2005 and the Burda Poetry Prize in Germany in 2008. She has been a resident poet at Literarisches Colloquium in Berlin, Germany, and has received a fellowship at Gaude Polonia, Warsaw, Poland. Her English translations of Eastern-European poets can be discovered in the anthology, New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008). Factory of Tears has been translated into Swedish and German.

View Valzhyna Mort's web page

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