Valzhyna Mort

Valzhyna Mort, born in Minsk, Belarus (former Soviet Union), in 1981, made her American debut in 2008 with a poetry collection Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press), cotranslated by the husband-and-wife team of Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright and Pultizer Prize—winning poet Franz Wright. Library Journal described Mort's vision as "visceral, wistful, bittersweet, and dark." The New Yorker writes, "Mort strives to be an envoy for her native country, writing with almost alarming vociferousness about the struggle to establish a clear identity for Belarus and its language."