Maria Laina was born in Patras, Greece in 1947. She graduated from the Athens Law School and has worked in editing and teaching modern Greek language and literature at American college programs. She has produced and broadcast literary programs for radio and written scripts for television. She has published eight plays, four of which are monologues and eight collections of poetry. She has received three awards, one of which was the Greek National Award for Poetry in 1993. A collection of her poetry translated into German was given the Award of the City of Munich in 1995. Her plays have been performed on central stages in Athens, Thessaloniki and elsewhere, and her poetry has been translated into most European languages and presented at international poetry festivals in Jerusalem, Berlin, New York, London, Stockholm, Munich, Princeton, and Majorca. She has translated Katherine Mansfield, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Edith Wharton, Patricia Highsmith, Charlotte Bronté, and Tennessee Williams among others, and has edited an anthology of 20th century poets, a selection of which is translated into Greek.
