Maria Stepanova

The outbreak of the Covid pandemic put an end to Maria Stepanova’s stay in Cambridge, UK, in March 2020. Back in Russia, she spent the following months in a state of torpor – time had “gone numb.” When she emerged from this state, she began to read Ovid. Motifs found each other that had long been waiting within her. The poem, written in a frenzy of inspiration, speaks of winter and war, of exile and exile, of social isolation and existential abandonment. The work weaves love letters and travelogues, Chinese verse and Danish fairy tales into a many-voiced evocation of frozen and slowly thawing time.

Maria Stepanova, born in Moscow in 1972, is the most internationally successful Russian poet of the present day. She has received numerous awards for her extensive lyrical and essayistic work. She is currently a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Languages: Russian/German
Translation: Irina Kissin