Iya Kiva (Ukraine)

Iya Kiva (Ія Ківа) was born in 1984 in Donetsk. She studied philology and cultural studies at Donetsk National University, also learning graphic design. Kiva was forced to move to Kyiv in 2014 due to Russia’s war against Ukraine; she currently lives in Lviv. Iya Kiva made her poetic debut in Russian, but in recent years has switched to writing poetry in Ukrainian. She is the author of three poetry collections: Подальше от рая (Further from Heaven, 2018), Перша сторінка зими (The First Page of Winter, 2019, earning the LitAkcent Prize special award), and Сміх згаслої ватри (The Laugh of an Extinguished Bonfire, 2023). Kiva has also published a book of interviews with Belarusian authors devoted to the 2020–2021 political protests in Belarus and titled Ми прокинемось іншими (We Will Wake Up Different, 2021). Iya Kiva is a laureate of the Metafora Prize for literary translators (2020) and has been shortlisted for the Women in Arts Award, The Resistance 2024. Her poems have been translated into more than 30 languages, and her poetry collections have been published in English, Polish, and Bulgarian. Kiva translates poetry from Polish and Belarusian. She also translates children’s books and edits books translated from English as a contributor to the PJ Library project. Iya Kiva is a member of the Ukrainian PEN Center.