Studied History of Theatre, Russian and German Literature in Cologne, Vienna and Munich. Since 1972 she has been a translator and interpreter (free-lance, Russian—German). In 1984–2009, she served as a part-time lecturer (SDI Munich, education of professional translators). From 1997 to 2009, she was chairwoman of the newly established Deutscher Übersetzerfonds (German Translators‘ Foundation). In 2012, she was a visiting professor at the Institute for German Literature Leipzig. In 2012–2013, she held the August-Wilhelm-von-Schlegel visiting professorship in poetry of translation at the Free University of Berlin. In 2016–2017, she delivered a course in Literarisches Übersetzen at the University of Munich.

Her professional interests include presentation of Russian authors and culture in Germany, essays on translation, scripts and appearances on Russian subjects for radio and television, workshops for translators of literature and translation trainers.

Translations: Aksyonov, Bitov, Dostoevsky, Gorin, Nabokov, Pasternak, Popov, Lev Tolstoy et al. Various awards: Johann Heinrich Voß Prize in Translation (German Academy for Language and Literature) in 1995, Paul-Celan-Prize (Deutscher Literaturfonds) in 2010, Deutscher Sprachpreis in 2017 et al.