Elaine Feinstein

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

(born Elaine Cooklin; 24 October 1930 – 23 September 2019) was an English poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator. She joined the Council of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

in 2007.

Early life

Born in

Bootle Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Bootle (UK Parliament constituency), Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. Histo ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England, Feinstein grew up in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

. Her father had left school at 12 and had little time for books, but he was a great storyteller. He ran a small factory making wooden furniture through the 1930s. She wrote, "An inner certainty of being loved and valued went a long way to create my own sense of resilience in later years spent in a world that felt altogether alien. I never altogether lost my childhood sense of being fortunate."Couzyn (1985), p. 114. Feinstein was sent to

Wyggeston Grammar School for Girls Regent College was a sixth form college in Leicester, England. The college was formed in 1976 as the ''Wyggeston Collegiate Sixth Form College'' and was renamed ''Regent College'' in 1996. It was merged into the nearby Wyggeston and Queen Eli ...

by her mother, "a school as good as Leicester could provide". She wrote poems from the age of eight, which were published in the school magazine. At the end of the war Feinstein's sense of childhood security was shattered by the revelations of the Nazi

extermination camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

. She noted, "In that year I became Jewish for the first time." A recent critic commented: "Alive to her family origins in the

Russian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

diaspora, she developed a close affinity with the Russian poets of this and the last century." Michael Schmidt, ''Lives of the Poets'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007, p. 856. Feinstein excelled at school work from then on. After

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sid ...

, she read for the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

, worked at Hockerill Training College, and then as a university lecturer at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

(1967–1970), appointed by

Donald Davie Donald Alfred Davie, FBA (17 July 1922 – 18 September 1995) was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes. Biography Davie was born in Barnsley, ...

Literary career

Feinstein married and had three sons with her husband, Arnold Feinstein. As she resumed writing she "came to life again", keeping journals, enjoying the process of reading and writing poetry, composing pieces to help her make sense of experience.Couzyn (1985), p. 115. She commented that she wanted "plain propositions, lines that came singing out of poems with a perfection of phrasing like lines of music." She was inspired by the poetry of

Marina Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (russian: Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈtaɪvə; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russia ...

to translate some of her poetry. These poems were published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

and

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Arts Council. After 1980, when she was made a Fellow of the

, she became a full-time writer. In 1990, she received a

Cholmondeley Award The Cholmondeley Awards () are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...

for Poetry and an Honorary D.Litt. from the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_labe ...

. She visited Russia occasionally to research her books and visit friends, who included

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko ( rus, links=no, 1=Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet. He was also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, ...

. Her writings included 14 novels, many radio plays, television dramas, and five biographies, including '' A Captive Lion: the Life of Marina Tsvetaeva'' (1987) and ''Pushkin'' (1998). ''

Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...

: The Life of a Poet'' (2001) was shortlisted for the biennial Marsh Biography Prize. Her biography of

Anna Akhmatova Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...

, ''Anna of all the Russias'', appeared in 2005 and was translated into twelve European languages, including Russian. Her first novel, ''The Circle'' (1970), written under Tsvetayeva's influence, is "a study of a marriage, mostly through the wife's mind."Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present'' ( Batsford: London, 1990), p. 361. Several novels concern her Jewish roots: ''The Survivors'' (1982), spans the generations before and after the Holocaust, while ''The Border'' (1984) tells of an old woman in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

and her "painful, mysterious... escape from Vienna with her husband in 1939". Feinstein's poetry was influenced by

Black Mountain poets The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American ''avant-garde'' or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Background Although it lasted only twenty-three ...

, and by

Objectivists Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

sent her his "famous letter defining breath ' prosody'". Feinstein travelled extensively, to read her work at festivals abroad, and as Writer in Residence for the British Council, first in Singapore, and then in

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies ...

, Norway. She was a

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

Fellow at

Bellagio Bellagio may refer to: * Bellagio, Lombardy, an Italian town * Bellagio (resort), a luxury resort and casino in Las Vegas * Bellagio (Hong Kong), a private housing building * Bellagio declaration, an intellectual copyright resolution * 79271 Bellag ...

in 1998; her poems were widely anthologised. Her ''Collected Poems and Translations'' (2002) was a

Poetry Book Society The Poetry Book Society (PBS) was founded in 1953 by T. S. Eliot and friends, including Sir Basil Blackwell, "to propagate the art of poetry". Eric Walter White was secretary from December 1953 until 1971, and was subsequently the society's chair ...

Special Commendation, and she was appointed to the Council of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. She served as a judge for the Gregory Awards, the Independent Foreign Fiction Award, the Costa Poetry Prize and the Rossica Award for Literature translated from Russian, and in 1995 was chairman of the judges for the

T. S. Eliot Prize The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize that was, for many years, awarded by the Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Priz ...

.Elaine Feinstein page
Carcanet Press. Feinstein participated in the 22nd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November 2010 and continued to give readings in various countries.A podcast of her interview with Robert Seatter is available a
The Poetry Trust
Recently asked in an interview with Alma Books what three books she would save if her house were on fire, she replied, "I'd take my iPad."

Death

Elaine Feinstein died of cancer in London on 23 September 2019, aged 88. She was survived by her three sons and six grandchildren.

Books

Poetry

*''In a Green Eye'' (London: Goliard Press, 1966) *''The Magic Apple Tree'' (London: Hutchinson, 1971) *''At the Edge'' (Northamptonshire: Sceptre Press, 1972) *''The Celebrants and Other Poems'' (Hutchinson, 1973) *''Some Unease and Angels:'' ''Selected Poems'' (University Center, MI: Green River Press, 1977; Hutchinson, 1981) *''The Feast of Eurydice'' (London: Faber & Faber/Next Editions, 1980) *''Badlands'' (Hutchinson, 1987) *''City Music'' (Hutchinson, 1990) *''Selected Poems'' (Carcanet Press, 1994) *''Daylight'' (Carcanet Press, 1997) *''Gold'' (Carcanet Press, 2000) *''Collected Poems and Translations'' (Carcanet Press, 2002) *''Talking to the Dead'' (Carcanet Press, 2007) *''Cities'' (Carcanet Press, 2010) *''The Clinic, Memory: New and Selected Poems'' (Carcanet Press, 2017)

Novels

*''The Circle'' (London: Hutchinson, 1970) *''The Amberstone Exit'' (Hutchinson, 1972). Translated into Hebrew (Keter 1984) *''The Glass Alembic'' (Hutchinson, 1973; New York: Dutton, 1974 as ''The Crystal Garden'') *''Children of the Rose'' (Hutchinson, 1974). Translated into Hebrew, 1987 *''The Ecstasy of Dr Miriam Garner'' (Hutchinson, 1976) *''The Shadow Master'' (Hutchinson, 1978; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979) *''The Survivors'' (Hutchinson, 1982) *''The Border'' (Hutchinson, 1985) *''Mother's Girl'' (Hutchinson, 1988) *''All You Need'' (Hutchinson, 1991) *''Loving Brecht'' (Hutchinson, 1992) *''Dreamers'' (London: Macmillan, 1994) *''Lady Chatterley's Confession'' (Macmillan, 1995) *''Dark Inheritance'' (London,

Women's Press The Women's Press was a feminist publishing company established in London in 1977. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, the Women's Press was a highly visible presence, publishing feminist literature. Founding In 1977, Stephanie Dowrick cofo ...

, 2001) *''The Russian Jerusalem'' (Carcanet Press, 2008)

Short story collections

*''Matters of Chance'' (London: Covent Garden Press, 1972) *''The Silent Areas'' (Hutchinson, 1980)

Teleplays and radio plays

*1975: ''Breath'' *1980: ''Echoes'' *1981: ''A Late Spring'' *1982: ''Lunch'' *1984: ''A Captive Lion'' *1985: ''Marina Tsvetayeva: A Life'' *1985: ''A Brave Face'' *1986: ''A Day Off'' *1987: ''If I Ever Get on My Feet Again'' *1990: ''The Man in Her Life'' *1993: ''Foreign Girls, a trilogy'' *1994: ''A Winter Meeting'' *1996: Lawrence's ''Women in Love'' (four-part adaptation) *1996: Adaptation of novel, ''Lady Chatterley's Confession Book at Bedtime''

Biographies

*''Bessie Smith: Lives of Modern Women Series'', Penguin/Viking *''A Captive Lion: The Life of

Marina Tsvetayeva Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (russian: Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈtaɪvə; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russia ...

'', Hutchinson, 1987 *''Lawrence's Women'', HarperCollins, London, 1993; ''Lawrence and The Women'' New York, 1993 *''

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Ecco, U.S, 1998 *''

: The Life of a Poet'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001 *''Anna of all the Russias: A Life of Anna Akhmatova'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005; Knopf, 2006 *''Portraits'' (Carcanet Press, 2015)

Memoirs

* ''It Goes With The Territory: Memoirs of a Poet'', Alma Books, 2013

Translations

: ''Selected Poems'' (1971; 2nd ed., 1981; 3rd ed., 1986; 4th ed., 1993; 5th ed., 1999; 6th ed. 2009 as ''Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems'') * ''Three Russian Poets:

Margarita Aliger Margarita Iosifovna Aliger ( rus, Маргари́та Ио́сифовна Алиге́р, p=mərɡɐˈrʲitə ɪˈosʲɪfəvnə ɐlʲɪˈɡʲɛr, a=Margarita Iosifovna Aliger.ru.oga; – August 1, 1992) was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian po ...

Yunna Morits Yunna Petrovna Morits (Moritz) (russian: Ю́нна Петро́вна Мо́риц; born June 2, 1937), is a Soviet and Russian poet, poetry translator and activist.

Bella Akhmadulina Izabella Akhatovna Akhmadulina ( rus, Бе́лла (Изабе́лла) Аха́товна Ахмаду́лина, tt-Cyrl, Белла Әхәт кызы Әхмәдуллина; 10 April 1937 – 29 November 2010) was a Soviet Union, Soviet and ...

'', Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1976

As editor

* ''After Pushkin'', Folio Society/Carcanet Press, 1999

In anthologies

* Contributor to ''A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West'', Gingko Library 2019.

Prizes and awards

*1970: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation *1971: Betty Miller Prize *1979: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation *1981: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation *1981: Fellow of the

*1990:

*1990: Shortlisted for 1990 Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize *1992: Society of Authors Travel Award *2004: Arts Council Award

References

External links

Profile
at Poetry Archive *
Podcast interview with Elaine Feinstein at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival"Elaine Feinstein – Talking to the Dead"
7 May 2007. BBC ''

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by A ...

'' (audio 9 min)
"Elaine Feinstein"
Tuesday 2 July 2002]
"She Means It When She Rhymes: Marina Tsvetaeva: Selected Poems"
. Review from ''Thumbscrew''. No 17 – Winter 2000/1
Elaine Feinstein Papers

University of Manchester Library The University of Manchester Library is the library system and information service of the University of Manchester. The main library is on the Oxford Road campus of the university, with its entrance on Burlington Street. There are also ten other ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feinstein, Elaine 1930 births 2019 deaths 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British translators 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers 21st-century English poets 21st-century English women writers Academics of the University of Essex Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge British women dramatists and playwrights English Jewish writers English translators English women novelists English women poets Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Jewish poets People from Bootle Russian–English translators