Maya Dimerli

Maya Dimerli is a writer, poet, translator, and cultural manager. Born in 1973, she lives and works in Odesa. She is the author of the short-story collection No Death to Dread (but Barmaley Instead), as well as poetry and prose published in various literary outlets. From 2018 to 2020, she worked as a moderator at the International Literature Festival Odesa, hosting events with Meg Rosoff, Anushka Ravishankar, Bette Westera, Yulia Verba, and Taya Naydenko. At the festival, she also presented her translations from Japanese of Natsume Soseki’s Ten Nights of Dreams. Since January 2023, she has headed the Odesa UNESCO City of Literature Office, developing the city’s international literary connections and initiating translation, educational, and interdisciplinary projects. These include Poetry in the UNESCO Cities of Literature, the children’s literary competition and almanac New Odyssey, and collaborative programmes with writers, translators, schools, museums, and Cities of Literature worldwide. In 2017, she co-organised the international flash mob Odesa Reads! Odesa Is Read!, in which more than 1,000 participants read works by Odesa authors in 30 languages. Her work brings together literary creation, translation, and cultural diplomacy. She is also a co-founder of the Ukrainian Cosmopolis is an independent civic-intellectual collective based in Odesa and connected to the wider world. Ukrainian Cosmopolis defends freedoms of thought and speech at a time when both are under growing pressure.