Born in Eberswalde in 1951, she grew up bilingually, in Estonian and German. She studied biology from 1970 to 1974 at Greifswald University and worked at the Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR in Berlin. Since 1984 she has been working as literary translator of Estonian literature.

For her many translations she has been awarded several prizes, among others in 2009 the annual prize of Estonia's Eesti Kultuurkapital.