Lina Kostenko, a wide known Ukrainian poetess, was born on March 19, 1930 in Rzhyshchiv, Kyiv region, into the family of school teachers. She studied at Kiev Pedagogical Institute and graduated from Gorky Institute of literature in Moscow. Her first poems were published in the early 1950s.

Lina Kostenko belonged to the Ukrainian writers of the post- Stalin thaw-which were called "Shistdesyatnyky”. In the end of the 1960s Kostenko signed several open letters protesting against the arrest and secret trials of Ukrainian intellectual. Her poetry was not published in Ukraine.

Her life is not exactly happy. The rebellious spirit of a poetess explains her almost fifteen-year silence during the period of our stagnation. It was a sad episode in the history of Ukrainian literature. Within this time there grew up an entire generation of people who did not know Lina Kostenko’s poetry.

 She published her books of verse "On the Banks of the Eternal River”. This book is extraordinary penetrating in its force of feeling and concentration of thought. It is sincere in everything- feelings, thoughts and words. Such works are important for literature because they restore the creative impulse and moral wholesomeness in fiction.

Then appeared the books of verse ” Inimitableness” (1980) and "The Garden of Unmelting Sculptures” (1987). Using a subtle, emotive and a colloquial and aphoristic manner of writing, ranging from playful irony and humour to satire, Lina Kostenko is acknowledged as one of the best contemporary Ukrainian poets. Her collections of poems are published in many European countries.