Catherine Ciepiela studies and translates modern Russian literature, mainly poetry. When asked why one should learn Russian, her answer is not “so you can read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky,” but “so you can read the Russian poets.” The tradition founded by Alexander Pushkin in the early 19th century reached a peak a century later with the modernists – Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva and others – and is experiencing another renaissance in the post-Soviet era. Ciepiela works in all these periods, always with an interest in how Russian poets converse with world poetry.
Discipline:
Literature – translation
Catherine Ciepiela
Discipline:
Literature – translation
Region: Amherst, MA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2000, 2008
Studios
Banks
Catherine Ciepiela worked in the Banks studio.
Banks, an ell on the north end of the Lodge dormitory, was first used as an artist’s studio in 1970. Since then, it has played host to an extraordinary list of writers working in several disciplines. In all seasons, Fellows have enjoyed the pastoral view through the French doors facing a field…