Feinstein, Elaine Barbara

(1930- )

   She was born in Bootle, Lancashire, graduated M.A. from Newnham College, Cambridge, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester in 1999. She has been an editor for Cambridge University Press (1960-1962); lecturer in English at Bishop's Stortford Training College (1963-1966); assistant lecturer in English literature at the University of Essex (1967-1970); and a journalist. She contributes to many periodicals, including the Times Literary Supplement, and was writer in residence for the British Council in Singapore and Tromsoe, Norway. Her later work has been influenced by the Russian poet Marina Tsvetayeva (1892-1941), which she translated from the Russian. Three of her awards have been for her translations. She has written a number of plays for television and published fourteen novels, several biographies, and fourteen collections of poetry. Her first volume of poetry, In a Green Eye, was published in 1966. The last Collected Poems and Translations was published in 2003. Some of her poems: "A Quiet War in Leicester," "Against Winter," "Annus Mirabilis 1989," "How Did They Kill My Grandmother?" "Insomnia," "Night Thoughts," "Poem of the End," "Under Stone."

   Sources: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Holocaust Poetry. Hilda Schiff, ed. HarperCollins, 1995. Portraits of Poets, Sebastian Barker, ed., Carcanet, 1986. Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. Elaine Feinstein, ed. Penguin Books, 1993. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Elaine Feinstein Page (http://www.elainefeinstein.com/). The Faber Book of War Poetry. Kenneth Baker, ed. Faber and Faber, 1996. The Oxford Book of English Verse. Christopher Ricks, ed. Oxford University Press, 1999. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Voices Within the Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. Howard Schwartz, and Anthony Rudolf, ed. Avon Books, 1980. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.