Marie Iljašenko: Can we speak in their voice?
– Czechia
Marie Iljašenko was born in 1983 in Kiev into a family of Czech-Polish and Ukrainian descent. She studied comparative and Russian studies at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University. She is translator, essay-writer, editor and poetess. She has received the Tom Stoppard Prize (2023).
She has published the poetry collections Osip míří na jih (Osip Heads South, 2015), Sv. Outdoor (St. Outdoor, 2019), and Zvířata přicházejí do města (Animals Come to Town, 2025). The publisher asks in the abstract of her new book: “Is it possible to talk about animals and plants, or even speak in their voice and to avoid simplification, lecturing, and anthropomorphising?”