Tatiana Voltskaia was educated at the Krupskaya Institute of Culture. She has worked as a radio journalist since 1987, and a correspondent for Radio Svobody (Radio Liberty) since 2000. Her first programmes were features on modern Russian philosophers and writers. She regularly publishes articles on cultural topics in leading Russian journals and magazines such as Znamya, Novy mir, Oktyabr, Druzhba narodov, Neva and Zvezda. She established herself a leading poet and cultural commentator following the appearance of her first collection Two bloods in 1989, and published her fifth collection, Cicada, in 2002. She took part in the Poetry International at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2002 and in a UK tour by Russian women poets. Her poems appeared in a special Russian women’s poetry issue of Modern Poetry in Translation. Bloodaxe published Cicada: Selected Poetry & Prose, translated by Emily Lygo, in 2006.
