Regina
Derieva is an acclaimed Russian poet and writer who have been
described by
The Guardian
as a possible future Nobel Prize winner.
She was born in
the former USSR (Odessa, Ukraine), in 1949. From 1965
until 1991 she lived and worked
in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. She graduated
from university with majors
in music and Russian philology and literature.
A poet since the age of 15,
she published books which were heavily censured
by the then Soviet authorities,
but nonetheless (at the request of other
writers) became a member
of the Union of Soviet Writers.
In 1990, Regina
and her family converted to Catholicism and soon moved to
the Holy Land. The State of
Israel, however, deprived the whole family of
Israeli citizenship only because
they had declared themselves Catholic. What
is even worse, the government
of Israel refused to let the family out of the
country. Nevertheless,
living in East Jerusalem, Regina Derieva has
published a number
of books.
In 1996, a significant
Italian composer and organist, Fr. Armando
Pierucci, composed a cantata
for the series of Regina Derieva's poems
Via Crucis. That
same year, she lost the appeal for Israeli citizenship at the
High Court of Justice in Jerusalem.
In 1999, after
a request of Church officials as well as some articles
published in international press,
the State of Israel let the Derievs leave for
Sweden and the US. Regina and
her husband, who is a well-known icon
painter and expert in liturgical
music, went to Sweden. Their son Denis went
to the USA to study at Assumption
College in Worcester, MA. Having
received an invitation from
the Catholic and Lutheran bishops of Sweden, the
Derievs left for Stockholm to
participate in an ecumenical conference.
There they were granted asylum.
Regina Derieva is the author
of twenty books of poems, prose and essays.
Her works has been translated
into many languages, including English,
French, Swedish, Chinese, and
Arabic.
Her books in English
translation are Inland Sea and Other Poems (The
Divine Art, South Shields 1998),
In
Commemoration of Monument (Art Printing Press, East Jerusalem 1999),
Instructions for Silence (Latroun
Abbey, Jerusalem 1999), The
Last Island (Hylaea, Stockholm 2002), and
Alien Matter (Spuyten
Duyvil, New York 2005).
Her work has appeared
in the Poetry, Quadrant, Modern Poetry in
Translation, Salt, Cross
Currents,
Poetry East, St. Petrsburg Review, Ars
Interpres, Notre Dame Review
as
well as in many Russian magazines.
She has translated
poetry by contemporary American, Australian, British, Swedish, and Polish
poets.
In 2003, Derieva
has
been awarded the Shannon Fellowship of the
International Thomas Merton Society.
You can learn about amazing
vicissitudes of the poet Regina Derieva
from the following sources:
New York Times, November
25, 1996
(article by Serge Schmemann)
click
here
L'Osservatore Romano, February
27,1999
(article by Graziano Motta)
click
here
The Guardian, May
15, 1999
(article by David Sharrock)
click
here
The Tablet, July 17, 1999
(article by Joshua Brown)
click
here
Svenska Dagbladet, November
11, 1999
(interview with R. Derieva by Nina
Solomin
and Bengt Jangfeldt)
Svenska Dagbladet, July
4, 2003
(interview with R. Derieva by Ricki
Neuman)
click
here
Other biographies of Regina
Derieva can be also found in:
Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon,
band 21, Munich, 1999
Who Is Who in the Churches of
Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Art Printing Press, 1998; 2d ed., Moscow:
Cultural Bridges, 1999)
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