Irina Mashinski

Mashinski’s first collection, the bilingual chapbook Because we are here/Потому что мы здесь (1995), was unexpectedly published shortly upon her arrival in the US and was followed by thirteen books in Russian, English, and German. Her English-language writings have appeared in Poetry International, World Literature Today, Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, etc. Mashinski’s work has been translated into several languages and has appeared in various anthologies and journals worldwide. In 2020, she authored the Russian-language translation of the Emma Lazarus sonnet "The New Colossus", inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, for the multilingual international Emma Lazarus Project. Mashinski is the co-editor, with Robert Chandler and Boris Dralyuk, of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin Classics, 2015) and co-translator of Lev Ozerov’s Portraits Without Frames (NYRB, 2018). Her English-language debut, The Naked World: A Tale with Verse, was released in 2022 and was widely lauded by critics. Her second book in English, Giornata (2022), was a poetry collection translated by Maria Bloshteyn and Boris Dralyuk. In 2024, the German translation of The Naked World, Die nackte Welt (in Maria Meinel’s translation) was released by Elif Verlag.

In his Preface to The Naked World, Ilya Kaminsky writes: “This is a soul-making book, one that doesn't rest easy on the conventional narrative of one refugee's escape, but probes deeper into the music our days make, sometimes against our will. Brava!” In Los Angeles Review of Books, Herb Randall says: “Mashinski seeks liberating oblivion in a space that neither cares about nor notices her presence. The “A-merica” of Mashinski’s experience, with the negating “A-,” is “neither this, not that, nor the other, but a trying of the otherness,” a laboratory of creative dissection and reassembly of the self. Mashinski’s book is a virtuosic gift that amply rewards repeated reading — and listening.” Susan Blumberg-Kason remarks in World Literature Today: “Mashinski’s book is magical.” Patrick Kurp (Anecdotal Evidence) writes:” Mashinski relaxes and luxuriates in her understanding of human nature – precisely what Soviet Communism sought to manipulate and ultimately destroy. Mashinski’s work has the charm of a gifted child, one undefeated by experience and the crushing weight of history.” Sharon Mesmer (On the Seawall) remarks that The Naked World “is a beautiful, harrowing, and perhaps cautionary primer in legacy tragedy and survival.

• Geomorfologiia. Izbrannye stihotvorenia (1977-2022) [Geomorphology. Selected poems (1977-2022)]. Frankfurt/Main: Esterum Publishing, 2025 • Giornata. Poems. Translated into English by Maria Bloshteyn and Boris Dralyuk. Somerville: Červená Barva Press, 2022. • Delaware [Delaver]. In Russian. Moscow: Book Review (ARGO-RISK), 2017. • Ophelia and the Trowel [Ofelia I masterok]. In Russian. New York: Ailuros Publishing, 2013. • Wolf [Volk]. Selected poems. In Russian. Moscow: NLO, 2009. • Raznichinets First Snow and Other Poems [Raznochinets pervyi sneg I drugie stikhotvorenia]. In Russian. New York: StoSvet Press, 2009. • The Wayfarer Is Dreaming That [Putniku Snitsia]. In Russian. Moscow: Project O.G.I.: 2004. • Poems [Stikhotvorenia]. In Russian. Moscow: Classics of the 21st Century Publishing House, 2001. • Simpler Times [Prostye Vremena]. In Russian. Tenafly: The Hermitage Publishers, 2000. • After the Epigraph. [Posle Epigrafa]. In Russian. Slovo/Word: NYC, 1996. • Because We Are Here. [Potomu Chto My Zdes', poems, in English and Russian] New York: Lunar Offensive Press, 1995.

• 2025 The Andrei Bely Prize short list (prose) • 2023 - Pushcart Prize nomination (Giornata) • 2017 – Hawthornden Fellowship (UK) • 2015 - The international Russian Award (for the StoSvet Project), finalist • 2012 – The Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Award (with Boris Dralyuk, 2012): the First Prize. • 2003 - The First Prize in the First Voloshin Poetry Competition • 2001 - The International Russian America award, First Prize (for Because We Are Here). Shared with Vladimir Druk. Selected nominations for poetry in Russian: Russian Award (2017), Moscow Count (2017), Bunin Award (2004), Apollon Grigoriev award (2001).