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Bella (Izabella) Akhatovna Akhmadulina (Russian: Белла Ахатовна Ахмадулина) is a Russian poet who has been cited by Joseph Brodsky as the best living poet in the Russian language.

Bella was born on the 10 April 1937 in Moscow. Akhmadulina was the only child of a Tatar father and a Russian-Italian mother. Her literary career began when she was a school-girl working as a journalist on the Moscow newspaper "Metrostroevets" and improving her poetic skills at a circle organized by a poet Yevgeny Vinokurov. Her first poems were published in 1955 in a magazine "October" and approved by orthodox Soviet poets.

After finishing school she entered the Gorky Literary Institute from which she graduated in 1960. During her studying at the institute she published her poems & articles in different newspapers, both official and handwritten. In 1962 the first collection of her poems named "String" was a resounding success. In spite of being expurged a lot of collections of verses were published later: "Music lessons" (1969), "Poems" (1975), "Candle" (1977), "Dreams on Georgia" (1977), "Coastline" (1991) and others. Some of her poems have become popular songs.

Bella's first marriage - Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1954); second - Yuri Nagibin (1960). Since 1974 she has been married to the famous Russian artist Boris Messerer. They have a house in Peredelkino and a studio in Moscow.

The main themes of Akhmadulina's works are friendship, love, and relations between people. She is the author of numerous essays about Russian poets and translations. Some of them were devoted to her close friend, Bulat Okudzhava. Akhmadulina avoids writing poems on politics but she took part in political events of her youth supporting the movement of so-called dissidents.

In 1977, Bella Akhmadulina became an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters ([1]).

Laureate of the following Prizes:

• State Prize Laureate (1989)
• "Nosside" (Italy, 1992)
• "Independent" (Triumph, 1993)
• "Pushkin" (Germany, 1994)

In 1984 Bella was honoured with the Order of "Friendship of Peoples" (1984)

Bella Akhmadulna translated into the Russian language poetry from France, Italy, Chechnya, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia and many other.

Bella Akhmadulina's poetry books:

• "Struna" ('String'), Moscow - 1962
• "Oznob" ('Fever'), Frankfurt - 1968
• "Uroki Muzyki" ('Lessons of Music') - 1969
• "Stikhi" ('Verses') - 1975
• "Svecha" ('Candle') - 1977
• "Sny o Gruzii" ('Dreams of Georgia') - 1978-1979
• "Metell" ('Snow-Storm') - 1977
• "Taina" ('Secret') - 1983
• "Sad" ('The Garden') - 1987
• "Stikhotvorenie" ('A Verse') - 1988
• "Izbrannoye" ('Selections') - 1988
• "Stikhi" ('Verses') - 1988
• "Poberezhye" ('A Coast') - 1991
• "Larets i Kliutch" ('Casket and Key') - 1994
• "Gryada Kamnei" ('A Ridge of Stones') - 1995
• "Samye Moi Stikhi" ('Very Mine Verses') - 1995
• "Zvuk Ukazuyushchiy" ('A Guiding Sound') - 1995
• "Odnazhdy v Dekabre" ('Sometime in December') - 1996

• AKHMADULINA, Isabella (Bella) Akhatovna International Who's Who. accessed September 3, 2006.

See her poems here:

• http://www.poetryloverspage.com/yevgeny/akhmadulina
• http://www.penrussia.org/a-m/bel-akhm.htm