Rika Lesser

Rika Lesser
Born	1953 (age 70–71) New York City,U.S.
Occupation	Poet translator
Nationality	American
Education	Yale University University of Gothenburg Columbia University(MFA)

Rika Lesser(born 1953Brooklyn,New York) is an Americanpoet,and is atranslatorofSwedishandGermanliterary works.

Life

Lesser earned her bachelor's degree atYale Universityin 1974. She studied at theUniversity of Gothenburgin Sweden from 1974 to 1975 and received herMFAfromColumbia Universityin 1977.She has produced four collections of her own poetry, includingEtruscan Things(1983), and her prose translations includeA Living SoulbyP. C. JersildandSiddharthabyHermann Hesse.

Awards

In 1982, she was awarded theLandon Poetry Translation Prizefrom theAcademy of American Poets,and received the Poetry Translation Prize of theSwedish Academyin 1996 and in 2003.

Works

Poetry

• Growing back: poems, 1972-1992.University of South Carolina Press. 1997.ISBN978-1-57003-233-2.
• All we need of hell: poems.University of North Texas Press. 1995.ISBN978-0-929398-92-1.
• Etruscan things: poems.G. Braziller. 1983.ISBN978-0-8076-1058-9.
• Questions of Love: New and Selected Poems.Sheep Meadow Press. 2008.ISBN978-1-9313-5760-9.

Translations

• Gunnar Ekelöf(1980).Guide to the Underworld.Translator Rika Lesser. University of Massachusetts Press.ISBN978-0-87023-306-7.
• Hansel and Gretel(1984) (Illustrated byPaul O. Zelinsky)
• Rainer Maria Rilke(1986).Between Roots-selected Poems Rendered from German.Translator Rika Lesser. s.n.
• Sigrid Heuck(1988).The Hideout / Sigrid Heuck.Translator Rika Lesser. Douglas & McIntyre, Limited.ISBN978-0-88833-266-0.
• Sonnevi, Goran (February 22, 1993).A Child Is Not a Knife: Selected Poems of Goran Sonnevi.tr. & ed.: Lesser, Rika. Princeton University Press.ISBN978-0-691-01543-9.RetrievedSeptember 21,2012.

References

• "Lesser, Rika".PEN American Center. Archived fromthe originalon 2007-08-07.Retrieved2007-11-11.