Anni Sumari

Finnish poet and author Anni Sumari was born in Helsinki, 1965, and has written ten books of poetry, fiction and short prose. She studied general literature and media/ communication studies in the University of Helsinki (Master of Arts 1991). Anni previously worked as a PR officer and consultant for 7 years, and taught creative writing in the Critical College in Helsinki from 1999  to 2001.

She currently works as a freelance writer and translator of fiction. Her translations include  Beckett: Nouvelles/The Expelled and Other Novellas (2000); Beckett: Mal vu
mal dit/ Ill Seen Ill Said (2002); Robert Antoni: My Grandmother's Erotic
Folktales (2001); Bernardine Evaristo: The Emperor's Babe (2003).

As an editor, she has also worked on several anthologies, including a bilingual anthology of Finnish poetry How to Address the Fog, coming out in March 2005, a small selection of Finnish poetry translated into Serbian (Sarajevo Notebooks, 8-9/2005), and an anthology of contemporary Nordic poetry in English together with Danish poet Nicolaj Stochholm (Slope Editions, June 2005).

Sumari was awarded The Dancing Bear Prize (founded by the Finnish National Broadcasting Co.) for the best poetry book of the year 1998, Measure and Quantity (Mitta ja maara; also appeared in Swedish: Matt och mangd, Ellerstroms Co., 2000). She received a three-year artist's grant from the Finnish Ministry of Culture for the years 2004-2006.

Her works have been translated and published in literary magazines and
anthologies in English, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, German, French,
Portuguese, Russian, Belorussian, Hebrew, Slovak, Slovene, Romanian, Latvian
and Lithuanian.