She was born in
Kiev,
USSR (present-day Kyiv,
Ukraine) in a Jewish family. Her father Pinchas Moritz, was imprisoned under
Stalin. She suffered from tuberculosis in her childhood, and spent years of hardship in
Chelyabinsk in the
Urals during World War II. In the 1950s, she went to study in
Moscow, where she was briefly expelled from college for her poems' critical stance and alienation from the
Soviet system. Her poem was a tribute to
Titsian Tabidze, a Georgian poet executed by Stalin in 1937. Since the 1960s, she also became known for her poetic translations into Russian from many languages (these translations, commissioned by Soviet publishing houses, often employed an intermediary literal translator and a poet). She rendered into Russian verse such poets as
Moisei Toif,
Constantine Cavafy,
Giorgos Seferis,
Umberto Saba,
Oscar Wilde and
Federico García Lorca. In later years, she attracted many young readers with her children poetry, some of which, like her adult work, became known to mass audience through songs created by guitar singer-songwriters, especially by
Sergey Nikitin. Her other published work includes short stories, op-eds and, most recently, graphics. She has been founding member of several liberal organizations of artistic intelligentia, including the Russian section of
International PEN. She is a member of Russian PEN Executive Committee and its Human Rights Commission. She has been awarded several prestigious prizes, including
Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage. ==Politics==