WRITERS' SERIES
Insights into Ukraine's
cultural nuances.
Ukrainian Voices writers’ series will feature presentations, conversations and discussions of the works of modern Ukrainian writers. Literature can bridge cultural gaps and facilitate understanding between different societies. Presentation and discussion with contemporary Ukrainian writers can provide deep insights into Ukraine's cultural nuances, traditions, and values, helping Canadians and international attendees gain a better appreciation and understanding of Ukrainian culture.
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Book Recommendations
by Lyuba Yakimchuk
Poetry Books
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Artur Dron: We Were Here
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Halyna Kruk: A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails, Lost in Living
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Marianna Kiyanovska: The Voices of Babyn Yar
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Yuliya Musakovska: The God of Freedom
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Ostap Slyvynsky: The Winter King
Poetry Anthologies
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The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature
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Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine
Prose
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Artem Chapeye: The Ukraine
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Artem Chekh: Absolute Zero
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Andrey Kurkov: Grey Bees
Nonfiction
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Ostap Slyvynsky: A Ukrainian Dictionary of War
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Oleksandr Mykhed: The Language of War (NB: not about language, but the invasion)
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Ukrainian Writers Respond to War (essays)
Book Series
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Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature (classic and contemporary literature)
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Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series (contemporary poetry)
Third Event
Online Conversation
Sunday, October 27 at 10 AM PDT
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Reserve free ticket:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/ukrainian-voices-a-talk-with-lyuba-yakimchuk-tickets-1048217144697
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Description:
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Join us for an online conversation on Sunday morning, October 27, at 10 AM PDT. Our special guests will include Lyuba Yakimchuck, the award-winning Ukrainian poet, playwright, and screenwriter, renowned for her poem collections such as Apricots of Donbas in conversation with Amelia Glaser, a distinguished scholar, translator, and author.
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The collection of poems Apricots of Donbas offers a distinctive perspective through the eyes of a woman observing her homeland being ravaged by war. Rather than portraying herself as a victim, she presents herself as a silent observer, striving to understand the chaos surrounding her. A sense of playfulness and repetition, reminiscent of a Ukrainian futuristic poetic style, characterizes Yakimchuck's poetry.
The conversation will explore Yakimchuck's unique poetic style, which may be viewed as rigid yet remains deeply authentic. We will also discuss the transformation of language during the war and how this evolution reflects in the changing of words' meaning during the war. We will also take the opportunity to explore in greater depth the contrast that Yakimchuck employs in her verses between the harshness of coal and the delicate beauty of apricot blossoms, a combination unique to the Donbas region.
This event is taking place online and is free, but please reserve your spot here.
The event is part of Senchenko’s Ukrainian Day programming, in partnership with the Maple Hope Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit organization committed to helping people suffering from the war in Ukraine, and the Upstart & Crow Literary Arts Society.. The Ukrainian Voices Series features presentations and discussions of the works of modern Ukrainian writers.​
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About the author:
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Lyuba Yakimchuck
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An award-winning Ukrainian poet, as well as a play and screenwriter (b.1985), Yakimchuk is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including Iak Moda (Like Fashion, 2009) and Abrykosy Donbasu (Apricots of Donbas, 2015, 2023), the film script for “Slovo” House: Unfinished Novel (2024) and documentary Slovo” House”, about Ukrainian artists persecuted by the totalitarian system against the backdrop of the Holodomor famine. Her writing has been translated into more than twenty languages. At the 2022 Grammy Awards, she performed her poem “Prayer” in English as part of John Legend’s performance of his song “Free.” The French translation of Apricots of Donbas was shortlisted for the 2024 Prix Mallarmé étranger de la traduction. This book has also been recorded in French by Catherine Deneuve and released in 2024 by Edition des Fames in Paris.
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Yakimchuk has been personally affected by war: she lost her family home in the small town of Pervomaisk in Luhansk region, which borders Russia, and which Russian military forces occupied in 2014. Starting from her collection Apricots of Donbas to her latest work, her poetry embodies the story of a woman facing life’s changing traumatic situation for her family, her hometown, and her country. Yakimchuk’s poetry is versatile, often based on wordplay, combining both artistic subtlety and factual war-reporting style. Critics point out that playfulness in the face of catastrophe is a distinctive feature of Yakimchuk’s voice, evoking the legacy of the Ukrainian Futurists of the 1920s. Her poems are not just about the experience of war, but about identity reassembling, appealing to historical memory and attempts at its rebuilding.
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Lyuba's poetry has received international acclaim and has been translated into over 20 languages. The New York Times, BBC, CBC, and CNN have covered her works
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About the moderator:
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Amelia Glaser
Amelia Glaser is Professor of Literature at UCSD where she holds the Chair in Judaic Studies. A scholar and translator of Ukrainian, Russian, and Yiddish literature, she is the author of Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands (Northwestern UP, 2012), Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine (Harvard UP, 2020), the editor of Stories of Khmelnytsky: Literary Legacies of the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack Uprising (Stanford UP, 2015) and, with Steven Lee, Comintern Aesthetics (U. Toronto Press, 2020); and the translator of Proletpen: America’s Rebel-Yiddish Poets (U. Wisconsin Press, 2005) and, with Yuliya Ilchuk, A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails: Poems by Halyna Kruk (Arrowsmith Press, 2023).
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Second Event
Online Conversation
Saturday, October 5 at 10 AM (PDT)
Tickets here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/ukrainian-voices-eugenia-kuznetsova-tickets-1026502124487
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Description:
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Join us for an online conversation on Saturday, October 5 at 10 AM with Eugenia Kuznetsova, Ukrainian author of the novel The Ladder and Ask Miechka which was shortlisted for BBC News Ukraine Book of The Year in 2021 and Jessica M. Zychowicz a scholar, editor, curator and author.
In her novel Ask Miechka, Kuznetsova tenderly explores the lives of four generations of women from a single family as they gather in their childhood home. Together, they seek to pause time and navigate the life-changing decisions that each of them faces. In her latest work, The Ladder, she tells the story of a character living outside of Ukraine who aspires to build his dream life away from his family, only to find himself hosting relatives who have been forcibly displaced by the war.
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The conversation will delve into the importance of depicting family relationships in Ukrainian literature, particularly in light of the ongoing conflict and its impact on these bonds. We will also explore Kuznetsova’s sources of inspiration, the settings of both novels where characters confront pivotal moments in their lives, and the art of portraying characters with empathy and depth.
This event is taking place online and is free, but please reserve your spot here.
The event is part of Senchenko’s Ukrainian Day programming, in partnership with the Maple Hope Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit organization committed to helping people suffering from the war in Ukraine, and Upstart & Crow Literary Arts Society.
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About the author:
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Eugenia Kuznetsova is a Ukrainian author, translator, and researcher. She was born and spent her childhood in the village of Khomutyntsi in central Ukraine. After graduating Kyiv National University, she received her PhD in literary analysis in Spain. Now, Eugenia works in media research, focusing on conflict-sensitive reporting and countering disinformation, and translates fiction and non-fiction. So far, Eugenia has published two books. Her first book Cook in Sorrow published in 2020. Her second book Ask Miechka was shortlisted for BBC News Ukraine Book of The Year in 2021. Now, she works on the monography on Soviet linguistic and identity policies and another novel. Both books are to be published in 2022.
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About the moderator:
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Jessica Zychowicz, Ph.D. is the author of award-winning books as well as many articles and chapters. She is currently Director of Institute of International Education (IIE) International Office Kyiv and Fulbright Ukraine. She has held key research positions at the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs, the University of Alberta in Canada, Uppsala University in Sweden. She was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Kyiv Mohyla National Academy of Ukraine. She serves on international professional boards in academia and the arts and has also curated exhibitions of contemporary art and was most recently an author and consultant on the “100 Years of Self-Determination” exhibition at Irish Museum of Modern Art. She has given many invited public keynote lectures at universities and museums in the U.S. and Europe. She holds a Doctorate from the University of Michigan and a BA from the University of California Berkeley.
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More about Upstart & Crow:
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Located on Granville Island, Upstart & Crow is a literary arts studio for curious readers and creative storytellers alike. We are international in our outlook, and local in our sensibilities. We create opportunities to surface new talent and champion bold ideas through events, workshops, literary launches, unique partnerships — and yes, we also sell books!
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First Event
Description:
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Join us on Thursday, May 23 at 6 p.m. for the first event of the Ukrainian Voices Series — an evening conversation with Maria Reva, author of the novel, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, nominated for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 2020. Reva will be in conversation with Alina Senchenko, an artist and curator.
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Clever and perfectly biting, Good Citizens depicts the absurdity of life in Ukraine under the Soviet regime as well as the time following its collapse. It chronicles the lives of several unforgettable characters, all residents of the same apartment building who face different challenging circumstances.
This conversation will delve into Reva’s inspirations for the book, the wider context of Ukrainian and Canadian literature, how Ukraine has been affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion, and the future of Ukrainian literature in Ukraine and the diaspora. Reva will read an excerpt and take audience questions. We will have books on hand for sale.
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This event is free, but please reserve your spot here as capacity is limited.
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The event is part of Senchenko’s Ukrainian Day programming, in partnership with the Maple Hope Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit organization committed to helping people suffering from the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Voices Series features presentations and discussions of the works of modern Ukrainian writers.
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About the author:
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Maria Reva writes fiction and opera libretti. She is the author of Good Citizens Need Not Fear (Doubleday, Virago, and Knopf Canada New Face of Fiction, 2020), set in an apartment block in Ukraine. In November 2022, she was included on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s list of sanctioned Canadian citizens who are forbidden from entering Russia.
Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She won a National Magazine Award in 2019 and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada 2020 Fiction Prize.
Her musical collaborations include a script for City Opera Vancouver (“Lost Operas of Mozart,” 2016) as well as two operas with composer Anna Pidgorna (“Our Trudy,” commissioned and premiered by Ad Astra Music Festival in Russell, Kansas, as well as “Plaything,” developed by Musique 3 Femmes, premiered in Berlin at the ufaFabrik in Fall 2022).
Reva was born in Ukraine and grew up in New Westminster, B.C. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.
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About the curator:
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Alina Senchenko is a Ukrainian artist and curator living and working in Vancouver on the unceded land of Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and the Squamish peoples. With photography as the foundation of her practice, she seeks to explore the complexity of her immigrant identity, belonging and displacement within her own experience and globally. Recently, she has developed an interest in film and video work.
Senchenko has exhibited locally and internationally: at 560 Gallery (Vancouver) in 2023, Canton Sardine in 2022 (Vancouver), CSA Space in 2019 (Vancouver), Art Platform in 2018 (Ukraine), Dynamo Art Association in 2017, PLAZA Projects 2016, Print Ready VII 2016, Project Space 2015, Vancouver Art/Book Fair 2015, Access Gallery 2014, and Square Project 2014 (Vancouver). In 2021, she curated the Solidarity Print Sale exhibition and fundraiser as well as Ukrainian Days, which included the film series “Witnessing Change: Ukrainian Cinema at the Time of Turmoil” in 2023 at The Cinematheque and Her Presence (Womanhood in Ukraine) exhibition in 2024 at CSA space.
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More about Upstart & Crow:
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Located on Granville Island, Upstart & Crow is a literary arts studio for curious readers and creative storytellers alike. We are international in our outlook, and local in our sensibilities. We create opportunities to surface new talent and champion bold ideas through events, workshops, literary launches, unique partnerships — and yes, we also sell books!
Health precautions:
We want this event to be fun and safe. Masks are welcome, though we won’t enforce them. We hope that folks who come will be vaccinated and boosted and will stay home if they feel ill.
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Accessibility:
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The main studio of our shop is accessible for folks with mobility aids. There is a washroom on the main floor available for attendees.
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More information:
