VALZHYNA MORT, born Valzhyna Martynava in Minsk, Belarus. At age 26,  a poet and translator, Valzhyna’s work has already been translated into many European languages, the most recent being a book in Swedish, released in 2007.

She has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies, including an Anthology of Belarusian Poetry (Sofia, 2002). Her first Book, Factory of Tears, is forthcoming by Copper Canyon Press in 2008, co-translated with Franz Wright.

A featured poet in the April, 2007 issue of Poetry Magazine, Valzhyna’s performance reading was commended by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Franz Wright with these words: “I'd seldom witnessed a performance of such charismatic authenticity and power. Anyone who has had the good fortune to hear Valzhyna will know what I mean. It's simply impossible on the basis of one relatively short printed poem to convey the cumulative impact of her work, with its naked directness and poignancy and dark wit.”

Valzhyna is famed throughout Europe for her remarkable reading performances, which display a talent not normally associated with one so young. She is the winner of several poetry competitions in Belarus, and in 2004 she received the Crystal of Valenica Award in Slovenia, which is awarded for reading performance. Valzhyna’s first collection, I’m as Thin as Your Eyelashes (2005), is startlingly assured and reveals a powerful poetic voice. She is the 2005 recipient of the Gaude Polonia stipendium. In 2006 she was a poet-in-residence at Literarisches Colloquium in Berlin, Germany. She currently lives in the United States.

Valzhyna writes in Belarusian at a time when efforts are being made to reestablish the traditional language, after governmental attempts to absorb it into the Russian language have been relinquished.  She reads her poems aloud in both Belarusian and English.

Factory of Tears, Lannan Literary Selections