Lena Eltang was born in 1964 in Leningrad. In 1988 she left the USSR, lived in Paris, London and Copenhagen. She has been living in Lithuania since 1991. A journalist and a translator, she has also become known as a poet after the publication of two collections of poems in 2003 and 2004, and as a short-prose writer, when her works were included in the Five Names anthology. Blackberry Shoot, Lena’s first novel, created a stir on the Russian literary scene, became a finalist of the National Bestseller Prize and Andrei Bely Prize, hailed by literary critics as “the best Russian novel in years”.

Since then, Eltang was a laureate and finalist in all major national literary awards, including the Russian Prize, awarded to foreign writers working in the Russian language.

Lena has completed her latest novel, Radin, in August 2021.