Moisei Fishbein

Moisei Abramovych Fishbein, a Ukrainian poet, essayist, and translator, was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, on December 1, 1946. As a young man, Fishbein was drafted into the Soviet Army and stationed in Siberia. He began writing verse in Ukrainian at this time. 

Fishbein published his first selection of poems in December 1970 in the Ukrainian literary journal Vitchyzna. He is the author of eight poetry collections, including Prophet (2017); Scattered Shadows (2001); Early in Paradise (2006); and Wonderful Garden (1991), a collection of children’s verse. In 1984, Suchasnist’s publishing house released an anthology of his work containing twenty-eight original poems, a selection of his poems for children, and a selection of translations from numerous languages. Fishbein translated literature from Catalan, French, Georgian, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish. His translations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s verse into Ukrainian were published in 2018. His own work has been translated into English, German, Hebrew, and other languages. 

Fishbein was a recipient of the Vasyl Stus Prize and the Omelyan Kovch Award.

In 1979, Fishbein was exiled from the Soviet Union and moved to Israel. From 1980 to 1981, he worked as a correspondent for the Ukrainian literary and sociopolitical journal Suchasnist, founded in West Germany and published by the Ukrainian diaspora in both the United States and Germany. In 1982, he relocated to West Germany, where he worked for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty as a correspondent, editor, and pundit in both the Russian and Ukrainian service. He returned to Ukraine in 2003. Fishbein was a member of the Ukrainian Center of the International PEN Club (now, PEN Ukraine), the Union of Writers of Ukraine (now, the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine), and a member of the editorial board of Dnipro magazine.

Fishbein died in Kyiv on May 26, 2020.