Yuri Kolker (b. 1946), poet, literary critic, and journalist, was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the former USSR. He graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic and received his Ph.D. in biomathematics in 1978. Ever since his early childhood, he wrote poetry. His poems first appeared in print in the USSR in 1972, and since 1981 also in the West. In 1980-1984, Kolker fought for his right to emigrate. The KGB harassed him and his family. He lost his position as a scientist. The literary press stopped printing his work. Despite the pressure and difficult circumstances, Kolker continued to write; he took part in the Soviet underground samizdat publications; prepared a monumental two-volume annotated collection of Vladislav Khodasevich. This literary-critical work, devoted to a forbidden poet, circulated in the USSR underground; La Presse Libre instantly published the collection in Paris in 1983. The permission to leave the USSR finally arrived in 1984, and, until 1989, Kolker lived in Jerusalem, Israel, where he worked at the Hebrew University. In 1989, Kolker joined the BBC Russian Service in London where he anchored radio magazines Paradigm and Europe. In exile, he published copiously in nearly every country where a Russian community existed. He produced seven volumes of poetry, among them Let's Focus on what's beyond Doubt, St. Petersburg, 2006, Distant in Humanity, Moscow, 1990, Afterword, Jerusalem, 1985. His two collections of essays: Aides Chill, 2008, and Osama bin Velimir, 2006, as well as a book of memoirs A Song with Parentheses, 2008, appeared in print in St. Petersburg. Kolker's numerous poems and articles frequented pages of the most prestigious magazines of Russian Diaspora and post-Communist Russia. He has published nine books as editor and translator. In aesthetics, Kolker champions liberal traditionalism and repudiates post-modernism and avant-garde. He lives in London.
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
