Ellen Hinsey

Ellen Hinsey’s most recent works are: Mastering the Past: Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe and the Rise of Illiberalism (essays, Telos Press, 2017), Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova and The Illegal Age (Arc Publications, Autumn prize of the Poetry Book Society, UK, 2018). Her other volumes of poetry include Cities of Memory (Yale University Award), The White Fire of Time (Wesleyan University Press) and Update on the Descent (Notre Dame University Press). She is a former Berlin Prize fellow of the American Academy in Berlin and in 2015 she was awarded a DAAD Künstlerprogramm fellowship. She is currently the International Correspondent for The New England Review.

The Value of Support

"Support from the Rona Jaffe foundation came for me at a critical moment. It aided me in carrying out research important for the development of my third book, Update on the Descent (Bloodaxe Books, 2009). This book is an anatomy of international violence, something that has only grown over the last decade. Empowering women to write and to speak truth to power is a valuable gift—especially at a time when freedom of speech is being questioned across the globe."

News

Ellen Hinsey’s most recent volume of poetry The Illegal Age, a reflection on the rise of authoritarianism, which developed out of research in Central and Eastern Europe, was the Autumn choice of the Poetry Book Society, UK, 2018.  Hinsey’s book-length dialogue with the Lithuanian poet and dissident Tomas Venclova, Magnetic North, was nominated for Lithuania’s 2019 Book of the Year.