THE ELAINE FEINSTEIN PAGE

Elaine Feinstein (nee Cooklin)  is a prize-winning  poet,  novelist,  playwright,  biographer and translator.

She was born in Liverpool ,  educated  in Leicester,  and won an Exhibition to read English at Newnham  College,  Cambridge.  She went up  in 1949,  only a year after the first women  were admitted to full membership of the University.   After graduating,  she read for the Bar  in London.    She returned to Cambridge with  her husband,   the molecular biologist Arnold Feinstein, in 1956, and they and their three sons lived in the centre of that city for more than  a quarter of century.   Writers from  across the world  including Yevtushenko ,  Miroslav Holub,   Allen Ginsberg and Yehuda Amichai visted them there.     Feinstein   supervised undergraduates for the English Tripos ,  lectured at the University of  Essex ( 1967-70)  and wrote   for The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, the New York Review of Books and other papers.       In 1981 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

 As a poet,  she began to write  under the  influence of Ezra Pound, Willian Carlos Williams, the  Objectivists ---notably Charles Reznikoff---and Black Mountain poets.    In 1959  Charles Olson sent her his  famous letter defining breath 'prosody'.    Alive to her family origins in the Russian-Jewish daspora,  she developed a close affinity with the Russian poets of this and the last century.    Her versions of the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva ,   for which she received three translation awards from the Arts Council  were first published in 1971 and remain in print.   Her poems have been widely anthologized.    Her  Collected Poems and Translations (2002) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.   In 1990,  she received a Cholmondeley Award  for Poetry, and was given an Honorary D.Litt from the University of Leicester .

She has written  fifteen novels,  many radio plays and television dramas.   Her first novel,  The Circle (1970) was long listed for the ‘lost’ Man Booker prize in 2010.    Her five biographies include    A Captive Lion: the Life of Marina Tsvetaeva (1987) and  Pushkin  (1998).     Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet  (2001) was shortlisted for the biennial Marsh Biography Prize.   Her biography of Anna Akhmatova,  Anna  of all the Russias  (2005)  has been  translated into twelve  languages, including Russian.   

Elaine Feinstein has travelled  extensively, not only to read her work at festivals across the world,  but to be Writer in Residence for the British Council, first in Singapore,  and then in Tromso, Norway.   She was a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at Bellagio in 1998.   Her work has been translated into most European languages.    She has served as a judge for the Gregory Awards,  the Independent Foreign Fiction Award,  the Costa Poetry Prize and the Rossica Award for Literature translated from Russian, and in 1995 was chairman of the judges for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

 In 2005 she was awarded a Civil List pension in recognition of her services to Literature        

Click here for a short realaudio extract from Elaine Feinstein's reading of her poem Insomnia. This and some other readings are available in full (RealMedia) from the readings page.

You can also read an important interview with Elaine Feinstein which appeared in Poetry Nation Review (Carcanet).

The Poetry Trust have uploaded three new podcasts from the 22nd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. The Poetry Trust website features the Poetry Channel archive, including over forty poetry podcasts. In the latest podcast acclaimed Carcanet poet Elaine Feinstein discusses her writing career with Robert Seatter. Elaine Feinstein has published numerous translations, novels, biographies and poetry collections. Her latest Carcanet collection, Cities, was published in 2010. Click here to listen to the full interview.   

Click here to see a complete list of Elaine Feinstein's works. 

Publications

Poetry

• In a Green Eye , London, Goliard Press, 1966
• The Magic Apple Tree, London, Hutchinson, 1971
• At the Edge, Sceptre Press, 1972
• The Celebrants and Other Poems, Hutchinson, 1973
• Some Unease and Angels, Hutchinson; 1977, reprinted, 1981
• Selected Poems, University Center, Michigan, Green River Press,1977
• The Feast of Eurydice, Faber & Faber/ Next Editions, 1980
• Badlands, Hutchinson, 1987
• City Music, Hutchinson, 1990
• Selected Poems, Carcanet Press, 1994
• Daylight,   Carcanet Press, 1997
• After Pushkin ,  (edited by Elaine Feinstein) (Folio Society & Carcanet Press,1999)
• Gold , Carcanet Press, 2000)
• Collected Poems and Translations, Carcanet Press, 2002
• Talking to the Dead , Carcanet Press, 2000
• Cities,    Carcanet Press, June 2010

Translated poetry

• The Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva,  Oxford University Press, 1971
  Second edition,   1972,   Penguin,  Penguin USA
• Bride Of Ice: New Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva   (Carcanet Press, 2009) ( including ' On The Red Horse', 'Girlfriend' ( lyrics for Sofia Parnok), New Year's Greetings, ( for Rainer Maria  Rilke on  his death)  and a new Introduction    Third edition, Hutchinson, 1987
• Three Russian Poets: Margarita Aliger, Yunna Morits, Bella Akhmadulina, Manchester: Carcanet Press,1976

 Novels

• The Circle, London, Hutchinson  1970  (Penguin 1973)
• The Amberstone Exit, London, Hutchinson, (Penguin 1974); translated into Hebrew (Keter 1984)
• The Glass Alembic, London, Hutchinson, (Penguin 1978); as The Crystal Garden New York, Dutton, 1974
• Children of the Rose, London, Hutchinson; (Penguin 1976); translated into Hebrew, 1987
• The Ecstasy of Dr Miriam Garner, London, Hutchinson
• The Shadow Master, London, Hutchinson, 1978; New York, Simon & Schuster, 1979
• The Survivors, London, Hutchinson; New York, 1991
• The Border, London, Hutchinson; New York, 1985
• Mother's Girl, London, Hutchinson; shortlisted for 1990 Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize
• All You Need, London, Hutchinson; New York, 1991
• Loving Brecht, London, Hutchinson
• Dreamers, London, Macmillan
• Lady Chatterley's Confession, London, Macmillan
• Dark Inheritance, London, Women's Press
• The Russian Jerusalem, Manchester, Carcanet Press.

Biographies  

• Bessie Smith: Lives of Modern Women Series  Penguin/Viking
• A Captive Lion: The Life of  Marina Tsvetayeva ,  Hutchinson, 1987, Harpers USA
• Lawrence and The Women, Macmillan  1993
• Lawrence’s Women,   Macmillan  New York, 1993
• Pushkin, Weidenfeld & Nicholson; Ecco, U.S, 1998
• Ted Hughes  - The Life of a Poet, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2001: Norton USA 2001
• Anna of all the Russias: The Life of Anna Akhmatova: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005; Knopf, 2006

Short story collections 

• Matters of Chance, London, Covent Garden Press
• The Silent Areas, London, Hutchinson

Radio plays

• 1980:  Echoes
• 1981:  A Late Spring
• 1983:  A Day Off
• 1985:  Marina Tsvetayeva:  A Life
• 1987:  If I Ever Get On My Feet Again
• 1990:  The Man in Her Life
• 1993:  Foreign Girls, a trilogy
• 1994:  A Winter Meeting
• 1995  Lawrence's  Women in Love ( A four-part adaptation)
• 1996: Adaptation of novel, Lady Chatterley's Confession, Book at Bedtime

Prizes and awards

• 1970: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation
• 1971: Betty Miller Prize for Fiction awarded to  The Circle
• 1979: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation
• 1981: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation
• 1981: Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• 1990: Cholmondeley Award
• 1992: Society of Authors Travel Award
• 2004: Arts Council Award

^ A podcast of her interview with Robert Seatter is available at The Poetry Trust.

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