Lela Samniashvili: There Are No Women Poets

Lela Samniashvili is a Georgian poet with the noble day job of a teacher of literature and educational politics. Born in the little town of Gori in 1977, she started publishing poems at the age of 14. With an in-depth educational background in literature, having been a researcher of American literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and a 2007 master of the philosophy of education at the University of Oslo, she is also a well-established poet. With five collections published, Samniashvili has won several literary prizes. Her sense, possession and understanding of the music and rhythm of the Georgian language also allows her to contribute to Georgian literary processes as a translator of complex texts such as The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. In her poetry, Samniashvili touches and explores universal issues with a subtle female voice.