A winner of the Albanian National Silver Pen Prize in 2000 and the International Kristal Vilenica Prize in 2009, Luljeta Lleshanaku is the author of six books of poetry in Albanian. She is also the author of six poetry collections in other languages: Antipastoral, 2006, Italy; Kinder der natur, 2010, Austria; Dzieci natury, 2011, Poland. Haywire: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2011), a finalist for the “2013 Popescu Prize” (formerly the European Poetry Translation Prize) by Poetry Society, UK, is her first British publication, and includes work from two editions published in the US by New Directions, Fresco: Selected Poems (2002), which drew on four collections published in Albania from 1992 to 1999, and Child of Nature (2010), a book of translations of later poems which was a finalist for the 2011 BTBA (Best Translated Book Award). Lleshanaku was nominated for the European poetry prize “The European Poet of Freedom, 2012”, in Poland.
