Zenta Mauriņa (15 December 1897 – 25 April 1978) was a Latvian writer, essayist, translator, and researcher in philology.

[3] Zenta Mauriņa was born on 15 December 1897 in Lejasciems, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (now Latvia).

[4] Born to doctor Roberts Mauriņš, Zenta spent her childhood in Grobiņa, where, at the age of six, she contracted polio, leaving her confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

[4] Up to 1944, Mauriņa published 19 books in Latvia, including monographs on Latvian writers Rainis, Jānis Poruks, Anna Brigadere and Fricis Bārda, as well as on Dostoyevsky and Dante.

After the war, she published 20 books in Latvian, and 27 in German, and her works have been widely translated into Italian, English, Russian, Swedish, Dutch, Finnish and Danish.