Elena Kostioukovitch

is a scholar, literary translator, essayist, and professor based in Milan, Italy.

Background and Academic Achievements

Elena graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in Italian Studies. From 1980 to 1988, she worked as the editor-in-chief of the Italy, Spain, Portugal and Latin America Branch for Sovremennaja Khudozhestvennaja Literatura za Rubezhom ("Contemporary Foreign Fiction"), a Moscow-based magazine. From 1988 to 1991, she served as a full-time research scholar at the Department of World Literature, USSR Academy of Sciences.

Her teaching career includes roles as a visiting professor at Trento University, Italy (1989–1995), University of Trieste (1991, 1992), Pavia University (1995), University of Milan (2000–2009), and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2014).
She has also given public readings at institutions such as the University of Tokyo, the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and Kobe University in 2014. Since 2024, she has been an Affiliated Professor at the Kharkiv People's University (Ukraine).

She is a member of the scientific committee of the Italian branch of Memorial, an association awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

Awards and Recognition

Elena has received numerous accolades, including:

• Best Translation of the Year (1988, Moscow, Russia)
• Zoil Literary Award (1999, Moscow, Russia)
• Grinzane Cavour Mosca Literary Prize (2004, Italy)
• Bancarella Award (2007, Italy)
• Chiavari Literary Prize (2007, Italy)
• National Award for Translation (2007, Italy)
• Award for Intercultural Approach (2011, Italy)
• Gogol Prize (2012, Rome, Italy)

Books

Elena's notable works include:

• Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (Sperling & Kupfer, 2006; EKSMO, 2006; Paidea, 2007; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009). This book has been published in 18 countries.
• Zwinger (Corpus Publishing House, 2013). The Italian edition, translated by the author herself, was published as Sette Notti ("Seven Nights") by Bompiani in 2014.
• Nella mente di Vladimir Putin ("Inside Vladimir Putin's Mind", Nave di Teseo, 2022). The book has been translated into German, Hungarian, Latvian, and Polish.

Translation Highlights

Elena is best known for translating Umberto Eco's major works into Russian, including:

• The Name of the Rose
• Foucault’s Pendulum
• The Island of the Day Before
• Baudolino (ranked as a top translator's work by OZON Online Bookstore in 2003)
• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

 
She has also translated Eco's non-fiction works, including Five Moral Essays and How to Write a Dissertation, as well as Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico ("The Aristotelian Telescope"), the only complete foreign-language edition of this work. Her translations of contemporary Italian poetry are included in Строфы века ("Strophes of the Century"), an anthology of the best poetry translations of the 20th century edited by Evgeny Evtushenko.

Edited Works

Elena has curated and edited several prominent publications, such as:

• Narratori russi contemporanei ("Contemporary Russian Authors", Bompiani, 1990; multiple reprints)
• Le radici dell’arte russa by Dmitry Likhachev ("The Roots of Russian Art", Fabbri, 1991; rights sold to Germany and Japan)
• Cinque secoli di disegni europei ("Five Centuries of European Drawings", Leonardo Arte, 1995)
• I tesori di Troia ("Treasures of Troy", Leonardo Arte, 1996; published in Italy and Russia)
• Il Murakka di San Pietroburgo ("The St. Petersburg Muraqqa", Leonardo Arte, 1996; published in Italy and Russia)
• Racconti e storielle degli Ebrei ("Jewish Stories and Fairy Tales", Bompiani, 2002)
• Il diario di Nina by Nina Lugovskaya ("Nina’s Diary",  Frassinelli, Milan, published worldwide)
• Quanto vale un uomo ("What Is a Person Worth", Bompiani, 2009; Italian translation of Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya' s account of life in the Stalinist Gulag).

 
Elena also edited a series of books by B.Akunin (Frassinelli, 2000-2005) and by Ludmila Ulitskaya (Frassinelli, 2000-2010).

Contributions to Periodicals

Elena has written for several respected publications, including Panta (Italy), Itoghi (Moscow), Ezhenedel’nyj Zhurnal (Moscow), Novaja Model (Moscow), L’Espresso (Italy), Panorama (Italy) and Lettre International (Germany).

Literary Agency

Elena is the founder and chief executive of the ELKOST International Literary Agency, which represents prominent Russian authors on the global stage. More information can be found at www.elkost.com.