Maria Stepanova

Maria Stepanova is one of the most important contemporary Russian writers of poetry and novels. In 2021, The Guardian rightfully called her ‘Russia’s next great writer’. Her work has been translated into more than 25 languages and has received numerous awards. In 2005, she was awarded the Pasternak Prize and the prestigious Andrei Bely Prize, and her book In Memory of Memory was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Stepanova not only writes fiction but is also an influential essayist and journalist. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent digital magazines OpenSpace.ru (2007–2012) and its successor Colta.ru. She has been living in Berlin since March 2022, after finding herself in a precarious position in Moscow due to her outspoken criticism of President Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.