(b.1963) grew up in Goldap in northern Poland. She lives in Warsaw, where she graduated in Philosophy from the Warsaw University and is a Professor at the Christian Theological Academy, Department of Education. Her first volume, "Sacra conversazione" (1992), received two awards for the best 1993 poetry debut (the Iłłakowiczówna Poetry Prize, the Czas Kultury Magazine Literary Prize) as well as the Kościelski Foundation Prize (Geneve, 1993). Her second collection, "Materia prima" (1999), was awarded the Polityka Magazine Passport for most promising literary talent and was shortlisted for the NIKE Literary Prize, the most prestigious of Polish awards, in 2000. She also received the Cristal of Vilenica Poetry Prize for the best poetry collection (Slovenia,1995) and Hubert Burda Prize for a selection of her poems in German "In den Rillen eisiger Stunden" (Germany, 2000). Kielar has participated in numerous international poetry festivals (including events in the USA, Germany, Sweden, Israel, France, Italy, Turkey, Malaysia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Latvia) and has been granted fellowships from cultural foundations in Poland, Germany, Sweden and the USA - most importantly from the Akademie Schloss Solitude (1999, chosen by J.M. Coetzee), Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators (1997; 2000), Ministry of Art and Culture Stipend (1998; 2005; 2015/2016), International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (2002), International Writers Workshop at the Hong Kong Baptist University (2007). Her poetry has been translated into 23 languages (in particular English, German, French, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Spanish, Herbrew, Russian, Dutch, Czech, Serbian, Slovenian) and presented in numerous magazines, including World Literature Today, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Chicago Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Ireland Poetry Review, Lyric Poetry Review, Diaspora Modern Poetry in Translation, Absinthe New European Writing, Le Journal des Poetes, Almanacco Dello Specchio, Luvina, Lyrikvannen, Die Horen, manuskripte, Host, Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and about forty anthologies. She is a member of the Polish PEN Club and the Polish Writers Association.