Revolutions of Hope, Part 5: Hope on the Page

Episode Topic: Hope on the Page

In wartime Ukraine, literature is a lifeline. Discover how poetry, fiction, and children’s books fuel national resilience and forge hope amidst tragedy. Hear from leading Ukrainian writers, translators, and scholars on the power of the page in the fight for a nation's future.

Featured Speakers:

• Rory Finnin, University of Cambridge
• Daryna Gladun, Graduate Fellow 2025-26, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame
• Tetiana Grebeniuk, Professor, Imre Kertész Kolleg, University of Warsaw
• Ali Kinsella, Translator
• Anna Romandash '22 MGA, Journalist and Author

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/f82177.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Revolutions of Hope.

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Transcript

Introduction and Opening Remarks

Speaker 10 0:06

I am very inspired by our organizers who are keeping us to time, and I don't want to let them down or break with this tradition. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Rory Finnan. I'm professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, and it is a, great honor to be a chair for this panel on literature in contemporary Ukraine. As many of you know, culture, literature, poetry, have been a key source of resilience in this war, and a key factor in Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression in the first days of the full scale invasion in 2022. I think everyone on this panel and perhaps even here in this room, uh, received WhatsApp notifications with poetry. Between air raid alerts, I recall how the poetry in particular of Ukraine's generation of the 60 years, the were, circulated very frequently. So the poetry of Lena Costco, I remember, was being circulated on poems that weren't even her own, Vaille Ko as well, his defiant taunt to Soviet authorities. where's your power Murderers of my people? Where's your strength? And then the poetry of Vaille Tus as well was read not only in trenches, but was circulated amongst, so many communities across Ukraine. So literature was a salve. It was a beacon of resistance. And so we're going to discuss that today, and we have a really extraordinary panel of scholars, poets, and translators to help us navigate the critical significance. Literature. So what we'll do is I'll briefly introduce all of them and then each of them will speak in turn. And after all the presentations, we'll field some questions from all of you. Okay. Uh, with us is Darina, who holds a master's degree in Ukrainian language and literature from Tarah Chenko National University in Cave and a Master of Arts in liberal studies from Dartmouth. Before the Russian full scale invasion, she worked as a junior researcher at the Tara Chenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She's pursuing an MFA in creative writing here at Notre Dame. Uh, dun is the author of five Ukrainian language Poetry Collections, 13 articles in peer reviewed journals about poetry performance in Ukraine. And she also co-founded the Poetry Performance Laboratory at the Creative Youth Seminar in European Tiana. Is a Doctor of Philology, professor and currently a research fellow at the Ana, Germany, and a visiting professor at the University of Warsaw. She received her doctorate from the Chef Chenko Institute of Literature, the national AC ca Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev, and has worked at the Zaha State University State Medical and Pharmaceutical University. Tiana is taught as a VI visiting professor at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich and at the University of Potsdam. She has been delivering educational lectures for a wide audience in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and France, and she's the author of over a hundred published works, including the Monograph Events in the system of contemporary Ukrainian fiction morphology, semiotics, and Reception. Ali Kinsella is a translator specializing in Ukrainian literature since 2012. Her diverse portfolio includes essays. Poetry monographs, film subtitles. She cot translated the Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Natal Kitz, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Griffin Prize. Ali holds an a MA in Slavic studies from Columbia University focusing on Eastern European history and literature. she's also, I'm very proud to say a Return Peace Corps volunteer. She lived in Ukraine for nearly five years and resides in Chicago, where I was very pleased to know she occasionally works as a baker. In 2024, she was awarded an NEA translation fellowship to translate Helena Crook's poetry, and Helena is with us here. we're looking forward to this evening as well with her. Anna Roman is an award-winning journalist from Ukraine, the author of the book, women of Ukraine, or Portages from the War and Beyond, which is published by Ibitda Press in 2023. She has been recognized as a media freedom ambassador in Ukraine for her work in human rights and media, receiving prizes and accolades from Inter News and the Council of Europe, among others, holds a master of Global Affairs with a concentration in international peace studies from the University of Notre Dame's Q School of Global Affairs, as well as a master's in media communications from the Ukrainian Catholic University. So two institutions that are very important to this very conference. She works at the intersection of media, technology, and human rights, and is dedicated to fostering inclusivity and technology and advancing digital democracy to improve lives in developing democracy. So as you could see, four very distinguished speakers who have a lot to offer us in this perspective about literature and its role in contemporary Ukraine. So we're going to begin with Darina, who will be, uh, start us off with a presentation entitled Home Reimagined. Please that floor is yours.

Speaker 2 5:46

Yeah. Please feel free

Speaker 10 5:52

and I will, as I've warned my colleagues, keep everyone to time as best I can and I will wildly gesticulate at the five minute one. Oh, perfect. Thank you, grace.

Speaker 3 6:07

I'm very honored to be here with you and to share, uh, my ongoing project of, uh, conceptualizing but Butcher Botcher group and working on the anthology of the group. And when I say I'm honored, that's clearly an understatement. I have started working on this project last fall, uh, when I, uh, joined Professor Romana Hugs, um, and Peter's class on. Ukrainian poetry and drama during the wartime, taught here at Notre Dame. and it has a global classroom. So some students from KU were also, among the first who have heard, of the project. So Butcher Poetry Group is an open type community formed in the late 2000 tens by poets Koki, Alexander Mo, myself, and later, uh, joined the group. Well, she is the youngest one. Uh, butcher Poetry Group doesn't discriminate. So she's nine years old. yeah. And we don't see her, the youngest participant of the group who is now a drive old age of five. that he, he's gonna, he's gonna be there once, uh, his literary career is more established. Well, I started working on the conceptualizing of the Butcher Buty group war time ago. Uh, not on any particular day or month, but on a specific occasion after the launch of the anthology of the third Melania Young Ukrainian poetry by Aba Bahala Maha, and its presentation tour that roughly mapped the most vibrant communities on the map of Ukraine. It was the time of the decentralization in politics in Ukraine when artists and writers all over Ukraine started a new wave of claiming more agency forming groups and collaborating on projects, among dams, the heran, et cetera. That is one how jokingly we came up with the idea of Butcher Poetry group in the private space of S Kitchen. Various participants of the Butcher Poetry Group have mentioned it a couple of times during the collective readings and in the articles of the small Stability and edited by Al. However, we were still very much incorporated into the KI that we were seen and couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly distinguished us from the rest of our FO poets with whom we shared stages and pathologists. Then on February 24th, 2022, Russia started at a full scale invasion of Ukraine burden the citizens of Butcher with the amount of trauma, none of us was ready to endure. Though it is important for me to stress out that Butcher poetry group was not formed in response to the Butcher Masa. the Masa was a great tragedy designed and executed by Russian soldiers. It did not inspire local writers to write poetry. It forced us to choose either to use our poetry to remember, or for your ga and it just so happened that we chose to remember, as Oberg would have put it, once of which poetry group. Now our, the scarring on the wounded body of Ukrainian culture. At the same time, Witcher Portrait group was vocal and vibrant before the full scale invasion. It would've been vocal and vibrant if the full scale invasion never happened. It is still vocal and vibrant, though, slightly more scattered around the globe. Conceptualizing the Butcher Porter Group from an insider perspective, and I acknowledge my own limitations still. This is my way to reclaiming my belonging to my home community and resistant Putin's propaganda. One of the participants of the group is ethnically Russian. He is Alexandra Moza. Another is ethnically Be Russian Kin. They write and talk in their mother tongues. They lived in the basements of Butcher during the occupation and they Russian food, just like their fellow Ukrainians who stayed in town. They're respected in the community. However, in conversation with the Notre Dame students at the Ukrainian portrait and drama class, KY mentioned that it is vital at the moment. To prioritize among all Ukrainian voices and Ukrainian experiences, which is why today I'm going to focus on the connection of Hope and Home in the upcoming book, letters of the Alphabet. Go-to War by LASIK Pan. LASIK Pan is a Ukrainian writer, translator and designer member of Pan Ukraine, who has recently joined 72nd mechanized brigade and is now serving his duty. He's the author of four poetry collections in Ukrainian, the winner of Small Skip Literary Prize. He points have been translated into dozens of languages, letters of the alphabet, go to war, translated by Kadi Ferris and I. Kaminski is going to be his first book published in English. I want to speak louder, even louder so that the world can hear me. Says Laskin, his interview to I Kaminski, published in the Paris Review, the letters of the alphabet, go to war is the echo of his voice That American audience is going to hear this summer among seemingly chaotic clatters on the cover the world. The word dim, I'm not sure if you can see it. Reimagining bucha as home after the massacre is a key narrative threat of the book. The word home is associated with trauma and loss and appears in the second half of the book. The book starts from the image of scattered. Around the backyard objects that belong to US Books, refrigerators Flat from Bucha on the first day of the full ski invasion. So saying true to his personal experience, author excludes the eye and the we from the location. The ruin is witnessed firsthand by our neighbors. The impossibility of the return home is emphasized by a shared dreamlike,

Speaker 2 13:51

catastrophic poem, A ba. One morning I woke up as a bomb and flew. Had long home. There is no return home for Las

Speaker 3 14:11

Home as a pre-war safe space heater. Doesn't exist anymore. It was violated by Russian soldiers and transformed into in his assay, the shoe full of water that splits the collection to before and after return to Butcher Pan. Finally home. I step into the apartment and detonate a small anti personal mine. In the hallway, our neighbors found a mine. LA behind. Inside his house sleeps I fog clouds my vision, but in a moment it clears. I see that I have lost a lag. My heart pounds rapidly, I think how to stop bleeding, but then I see there is no blood. Somehow the wounds already healed, relieved. I lean my back against the wall and search for prosthetics on my phone. I feel a strange excitement as if I'm buying a new bicycle. Eventually, I chose, I choose what seems like the best modal, and the fog Eng gs me again. I open my eyes. My lost leg has found my body once more, slightly disappointed. I'm moving my muscles, testing its presence. I lie there for a long time. Rewinding this dream, I realized that I am no longer, that I no longer fear my own mutilation or even death. A lightness, unbearable settles In that fair day, I buy tickets home. It's only after accepting that the ruin is now his home. He gains courage to face the reality of post occupation butcher, and come forward. To a new home that replaced the old one. There he finds the poor copy of my city. Everything is in place, but it's clumsy, broken, rid with holes entering the strange space of his home, collapse. The memory of moving into there and calling at home for the first time as it is precisely, precisely what he does in the rest of the assay inhabits his home In new. The ruin is filled with anxiety scraps and broken objects. There is a high risks of the explosives and mines hidden in every corner of the home, contaminated home as a place of potential danger. The essay, however, ends with the image of a pigeon who nests on one of the empty shells and is perceived as an intruder by the author yet. Is another being that is inhabiting ruin with hope. A shoe full of water touches upon the question of ownership of the ruin, of the complexity of the entanglement of private and public in experiencing butcher, as well as the concept of a ruin as home discussed in the community. Russian war in Ukraine is one of the first wars with overwhelming media coverage. Journalists rein invaded the private spaces of citizens after labeling them as ruins. Journalists would reinve luder apartment and houses by treating them as mere decorations. Asage background normalizing in entering the ruins of the present. In a way, terrorists enter the ruins of the past as spaces belonging to the local authorities and broader humanity, not individuals. Through the media footage, ruin of a private space is being forcefully transformed into a part of the public space and collective experience, which is an ambivalent act as, on the one hand, it adds to the credibility of the survivor stories on the other hand. For that to happen, numerous private spaces and experiences had to be made public to add a symbolic dimension to the name of the town I call home Unleaded enter news broadcasts and history books in the Optimus of the great tragedy, having no personal attachment to the objects in the violated space. Journalists treated. Each of them is either to breathe or so like artifacts, stepping in them, adding another layer of distraction to the wound of the wound home, or misplacing them. Enlarging the wound of the violated private space caused by lettering. Watching his apartment through the broken window. Filmed by one plus one media reporter, elastic Pan saw Ghostlike silhouettes of my laundry on the dry rack. Within seconds footage of my socks and underwear entered a collective experience of the Russian work crimes. My private space stopped feeling private at the same time. This act that is violated is privacy by journalists Nicks las, to confront the reality of his home that was turned to ruin. Then to accept this ruin and put it into the hospital room of my country to further reinhabited a Ukrainian word is ambushed through the broken window of letter the other country's watch how Letter E, Lucy Head, how roof of the letter. Falls through From this point I on the most ordinary day, begins with its travels and paid electricity, bills, and daily routines. Home doesn't feel safe yet. Being constantly reexamined as well as the memories connected to it. The lyrical hero of the poems learns to trust the home in you. Thank you.

Speaker 10 20:27

Thank you very much, Ana. We're very pleased to have Tatiana with us. Next. Her presentation is entitled, narratives of Hope in the time of hopelessness, contemporary Ukrainian war fiction.

Speaker 4 20:39

Thank you very much for introducing me. And uh, then, I'm grateful for, for, to organizers for this privilege to be, uh, here. and, uh, I focus on, uh, my talk. The entire Ukrainian literature of the last 11 and especially of the last three years has been dominated by the shadow or war, whichever a writer, um, writes about he or she writes about the war. This can be illustrated, for example, by Soviet laa territory in a, uh, f is a novel, the House of Salt, in which even the F is evolved, at all its levels refer to the history of the Russian Ukrainian lone confrontation. But in my talk, I focus on, um, the Ukrainian war fiction using this term, uh, in its broader sense, meaning not only works on, uh, works of combatant writers about the events at the front, but also works about the impact of the war on the lives of civilians. The world of war fiction is full of pain and desper the pages of the most famous books. I filled with reflections, on a threat and, fear of death, injury, loss of loved ones, desper, uh, the injustice and inhumanity of the enemy sections, sometimes characters expression of faith, in a higher force and in the, uh, better refugee is aimed at, uh, reassuring and supporting others and strikes, uh, one, uh, with its semen. Groundlessness as, uh, if based on the, tu principles, cred uhum as they believe because it is absurd in the story from, uh, his collection. Arabesk articulates this absurdity through the words of the young chaplain who speaks to, um, desperate soldier. I quote, God is love, but there is also one place in him where there is no. So it's not total love. No. It's, but there is one place where there is no love. And, uh, do you know where this place is? No. Uh, in where the son goes down, the mother of a wounded soldier finds the strength to support his son, in his, uh, desper mom. How to start believing again when there is no faith. Um, we're alive as long as we believe son, and if we're still alive, uh, then we have enough faith. But she herself is not sure of what she said. And the novel ends with, uh, like, quote, she hides in her tiny mother's shell. however, the essence of literature is to become a source of inspiration for the reader. Literature of pure Desper would not be, read in a world of pure desper. So the questions are how does the Ukrainian world pros cope with the pain and desperate that feel its page, and what exactly in these texts give us at least a shred of hope and inspiration as a framework for this search? For an answer to this questions, I'll use the concept of meta modernism, which is considered to be the dominant worldview, anesthetic trend after the loss of its dominant position by postmodernism with its cynicism, distrust of universal values and taboo empathy and sincerity For lack of time, I will not delve into the theoretical foundations of, uh, meta modernist studies. I have outlined my vision of the specific of Ukrainian Meta Modernism in three published articles, and I continue to work on this issue. I'll only mention the fundamental features of Meta Modernism tool, which relate to the nature of hope and contemporary war fiction. Based on works by Al, Tim Ver, uh, Robin Vanden, Ker, Alison Gibbons, Greg Denver, and Linda Ello. I include in this, uh, features, iation or hesitation between options and Python reflexivity, return on meta narratives, attention to the influence of media on identity construction, the need for we and cautious optimism, et cetera. two of these features of meta modernist literature explained the nature of hope in Ukrainian were fiction with the Atmos clarity, the need for we and cautious optimism, the cultivation of immersion in someone else, else's lived, experience. The need for we is inherent in many works of war fiction, the, process of approaches, uh, uh, approach in the other. In the books resembles the desire for a horizon there, uh, that is moving away, because the uniqueness of individual experience makes it much more difficult to, understand this other, um, their hesitation between, uh, the intention, intention to, uh, she experience and frustration in this process, is fundamental to the contemporary human being, and even more so to the Ukrainian human being in the time of war. But every achievement along the spot, no matter how small inspires and gives meaning to existence and therefore hope a writer and combatant Artem, uh, captures their mental distance between those, uh, with, combat experience and those who didn't serve, as a widening gap. While he reacts sharply to, attempts by non-combatants to publicly discuss other people's devastating experiences, he nevertheless agrees that communication is necessary, like what and question should be asked because if you don't ask, they won't tell and just won't talk to be understood. end of quotation and heaven initially expressed disbelief that, uh, there'll ever be a solution to the problem At the end of his say, check leaves a chance for, uh, the opposite. Maybe they will be Sunday. At the level of politics, the touch to someone else's, dramatic experience of survival during the war is provided by the very spar, by very, sparse, indirect, and sometimes tic unexpected means, for example, in Sja dance, uh, short. Story from the collection. Arabesques named the one that I will warm you in the middle of the night. Uh, we see such micro approachment of lonely characters who, because of their exper experience with uh, PTSD, don't allow others to get closer to their wounded selves. A men and the women, both military officers, uh, meet to have sex, after meeting online, but they feel lonely and distant, uh, in this kind of communication. it's only the woman's since story about her past adventure that breaks the eyes between them and they simply fall asleep next to each other, forgetting to take, um, their sleeping pills and, tranquilizers. Uh, one may also legitimately, legitimately question the presence of meta modern cautious optimism in works about the current wartime. Nevertheless, it's. Worse, noting that, uh, this trait is still represented in contemporary war fiction. First of all, this optimism is connected with the perception of, our time as, uh, history space of historical memory and past traumas which influence, our, present. uh, so, this time is viewed as a continuous change of generations where the life of a nation not a person matters. This optimism is often manifested in the image of a child as a continuated continuation of the family, the nation, and life. Even despite the suffering of death, of, older people, uh, it means that, uh, life continues, uh, in contrast to the older generation, their, uh, nephew of the socially apathetic protagonist of SJA Dance's novel, the orphanage. Has a clear national identity and this gives hope for the processes, uh, of historical traumas at the beginning of, uh, a new, historical lifecycle ox in her story. No entry to the performance hall. Performance hall after the third bell through your protagonist Drew line, under the, centenary efforts of Ukrainians to gain full independence, both legal and internal spiritual saying about the new generation of Ukrainians. I quote, they don't have fear. These children, many, many who suddenly cease to be children, when something frightens them, they don't run away. They go to watch it. They take their weapons and go to the front. They're not afraid to leave, and to die if they have to. They already know, that this is also part of life, the end of de quotation in some works, optimistic sounds. I realized through the use of the image of a child in a paradoxical way. For example, the protagonist of Ian novel Petor the smell of ground after the rain, a boy named Petro, uh, commits suicide so that, uh, his mother can get rid of, her distorted, trauma induced view of reality, his proclamation of the ages. war is a time when children die so that their parents may live. And the use of the image of a bird in the final scene now with which petro is compared nevertheless, gives uh, the work certain, uh, mythic meanings that allow us to see a certain potential potential for hope. In the tragic situation, it's worth noting that this use of the image of child, of a child. As a conscious, sacrifice for the sake of the future is an exception, uh, rather than irregularity in contemporary Ukrainian literature, living aside, theoretical and meta modernist, issues, I would say, uh, that, unity and faith and, consciousness of historical experience are the main, um, basis of hope in works of contemporary Ukrainian writers. in general, the optimism of the Ukrainian war fiction is Aply characterized, um, by the image used by Alexandra Mha in his book Jobs called Sign Chronicles of the Invasion, a somewhat, ironic comparison of Ukraine's fate with, uh, death of the, um, biblical prophet job who lost everything but survived and flourished. Again, thanks to his fate. Thank

Allie's Presentation: The State of Ukrainian Children's Literature

Speaker 10 31:50

from a discussion of representations of children in wartime fiction. We now proceed to a presentation about children's literature, and here we welcome our colleague Allie Kinsel, please.

Speaker 5 32:03

Thank you. Thank you to the Nano Vic Institute, university of Notre Dame, and all of you for being here. Um, I should mention I am a translator. I'm not really an academic, but I follow the Ukrainian book market very closely, and I also have a toddler, so I am an avid reader of children's literature in many languages. And, um, this is going to sort of be a survey of the current state of Ukrainian literature. Specifically, um, in regards to the War a Bahala, Maha was the first, uh, independent, Ukrainian publisher was founded in 1992 and in 1995. it's, it was funded by Yvan Malkovich, Ukrainian poet. in 1985, he sold the first book to the Western Market, the first, um, license for a Ukrainian translation. It was, uh, Nik, um, and it was printed by NF and I only learned this yesterday. and then in 2022 he published Harry Potter and that just set them up. And it was, as it's been explained to me, it was an incredible coup because the Ukrainian version came out before the Russian version and it shifted a whole generation of young readers into Ukrainian literature. the green, I assume goes forward, but then Itva was founded in Aviv in late 20, uh, late 2001. And they really only published children's literature in 20 until 2013. I will say that I work fairly closely with this publishing house, and so a lot of my information comes from them. And also their books are very easy to buy because they ship internationally and they now also ship other publishers' books. so there's going to be a bit of. My, my presentation will be skewed toward their publications, but, oh, well. Kye was founded in 2007 and it currently has 62 shops in Ukraine. They sort of revolutionized book selling in Ukraine. they offered free wifi. They had places where you could sit and read. They offered, and they still do lots of book presentations and author talks. And, um, I think that there are some things you could co say, you know, complaints you could make, but they have been exceedingly important. okay. Uh, a lot of this information comes from Y Fko, the International Rights Manager at VSL. So he explained to me that since the Revolution of Dignity Book Publishing has just boomed in Ukraine, um, especially children's book, book publishing. and we entered in 2014, ye entered a new phase where they were starting to really focus on what we would call picture books. before that, in Ukraine there were a lot of board books. There were a lot of fairy tales often printed on very cheap paper. And one very important duo in Ukraine is called AA Studio. It's Romana, Romanian and Andre Las. And this is their, um, this is Rka by Ivan Franco, and this is their design just gives you, there's this vertical page. It's very cute. they also have, this is another book of theirs, poppy seed and something I can't remember. Um, this is an early, um, study love book. And this is available in English. this is just kinda give you a sense of what they do. they're getting a lot of international recognition and they actually have four books translated into English, I believe. this is one of the first books that I fell in love with in Ukraine. very sweet. It was out of print for a long time, but it has been, I think Study Love Saw, saw the light and they, they brought it back. So it was pretty easy to get now, not available in English, but the. The, the Z bird decides that he's also going to try hibernating for the winter. doesn't go well. This is a very cute book. Um, and I actually saw it translated into French. It's not available in English. but this woman has written a couple very sweet books. I'm giving you examples of the different types of illustrations, right? There's a lot of time and effort is put into making them very pretty and appealing. Um, they're not computer generated. I mean, obviously computers are used, but they're not these like, really happy cartoons, which though those still exist. and then we also have a lot of books by, um, Alexan that are, and he has had three books published. This one I actually got at the library, so you can get it in English and you can read it for free, uh, which is not what I'm promoting. But, um, the irony is this is a book with no words. So, but it is available. and these are published by Red Comet Press, which currently has the, distinction of being the press that has published the most Ukrainian books in English, at least children's books. and those are, these are two books by Agar that came up with Chronicle books. They're both translated by, um, vital Cheki. Uh, and so as Ukrainian authors travel more internationally and attend more festivals, uh, more people are buying their books and they're becoming, they're translated into more languages. We also have, um, new developments in, in Ukraine. Uh, so these two books are sort of like sciencey. They're, they're very cute. they definitely appeal to parents and they teach you about like the mechanics of sound and the ear and how your eye works and things like that. Ukraine now publishes a lot of comics, so this is a comic about Ram. I have not read it, dunno anything about it. but it's from this new UA comic publisher, which apparently is also booming. Study Love has had their books translated into 45 languages in 55 countries, uh, most recently into Pharaoh. And, um, apparently a book will be coming out in Ramish soon. Most of these translations happen into neighboring countries. Where's like closely related languages? Check, uh, Polish and Slovak each have over 30, 30 volumes translated children's books specifically. but there are also a lot of books being translated in the Asian market. South Korea has 26 Ukrainian children's books available in, in translation. Taiwan, China each have 20. Um, this one is coming out soon. This is also a Grapha, but it's coming out with Enchanted Line, which is a cute press from Brooklyn. I think that I only does translations, or mostly does translations. This was, this came out with Elsewhere editions, which is the children's publishing arm of Argo, which is also based in New York. And, it was translated by Barista Luke, who's, famous Ukrainian. Jennifer Croft, who's famous Polish translator or translator of Polish. Um, and this was on the New York Times Bestsellers list. best Children's book, not bestsellers, but a curated selection, um, along with this one for 2023. all right. We also have, so as a result, study Love won this big prize, best children's book, publisher of the year at the Bologna Festival, which I think is coming up again in a couple weeks. we also have, okay, so maybe not in the United States, we have like maybe 15 books available. I much, I've already shown you, some older ones and some that I'm forgetting'cause I left the list over there. But since the full scale invasion, children's publishing has sort of not collapsed, but it's, it's, um. Sales have plummeted in Ukraine. And this is not just with study love, this is with all publishers across, in Ukraine, children's literature specifically. Uh, at the same time we see book publishing just booming. There are new bookstores opening all the time and even in small towns, but for some reason children's literature isn't benefiting. but Yvonne explained to me that he hears this also from his colleagues in other countries, and he doesn't really know what the problem is. Uh, but he does believe that there is like digital interference, and that books are sort of going, falling by the wayside. But, these are just, this is a, one of the books I we'll be talking about this is RK just wanted to show that like the illustrations are, are beautiful. The paper is, is nice. I brought a bunch of books for people to look at, later. Okay. How much time do I have?

Speaker 10 39:20

You have six minutes.

Exploring Ukrainian Children's Literature

Speaker 5 39:23

Okay. so I think that, I wonder, say that, feels sort of inauthentic to talk about children's literature. Um, and talking about by, by talking about the United States, right? I don't want to talk about, writing books that will sell or like writing for an international market. But we are in the United States, and if one of our goals is to get people to know more about Ukraine, like we have to talk about this. and so some of the, some of the books like the Sight and Sound books, those, those translate pretty easily across cultures, right? And, they, they include lots of facts about Ukrainians. So they're, it's like a sort of a sneaky back doorway of getting, of getting Ukraine in. We have the books like, um, the Cat and the Rooster, which I actually thought was a folk tale, but I think it's not, it was written by Malkovich. So that is, but it's got lots of Ukrainian ideas and themes and that's a way of also introducing children to other cultures. Um, or the turnip, which is just really cute and I wish I should have brought it. but the story of the war is not really translating well. and. The main reason is because we don't want to talk to children who aren't living in a war about war. And I, and I know this because most of these books I bought for this presentation because I wasn't buying them for my daughter because I don't want to read them to her. and so the, the books that have been written about the war, and there are many more than I was able to read, um, many more than I was able to get my hands on. Um, the, because of these like sense of urgency, especially in the early months, uh, I think lots of things are being published and not necessarily vetted. and then also you have the kind of the, the, the opposite aspect of publishing, which is that it can take a long time to publish a book. And so things can change quickly. But books that I found generally divided into two categories. And those were books that address the brutal reality of war and those that did not. And it seems like the brutal books are for Ukrainian children, unfortunately. The ones that are not, are, are for export. Right. But those books, are missing something. There's so like some aspect of inauthenticity. I'll also mention,'cause you probably heard my voice cover that I tried a lot when reading these books. and turn my, okay, so, oh, there's a book. I'll grab

Speaker 6 41:35

this one. Is, um, can we pass these around? Sure, sure.

Speaker 5 41:39

So this one is, it's really cute. Um, it's about the quote that KA and the Shaka. So these are, this is one of these myths that we've been hearing people talk about. It was written by Aand MHA, who's mostly a nonfiction writer and he wrote this, this job's call sign. but it is brutal and it is not a children's book. and I had to stop reading it to my daughter. Also, uh, a lot of times study lab will tell you what the, like target age group is, and they don't tell you in this one, which I think is an indication that it is not really meant for children. It is sort of, I see it as like a, an adult way of processing trauma, processing trauma. but so this is a, this is one that got a lot of attention. Um, and there's a, there's a line in here where they're talking about the, the mother who's been working abroad for a long time, and when the war starts, she, she like frantically texts every day. How are you? How are you? And finally she realizes that they like tell her this is not helping us. And then she's like, she relaxes because she actually didn't really want to be doing it in the first place. She just didn't know what to do. And there's this strong sense in this book and in a lot of them that, that outsiders don't know what to do. Um, and that there's, there's this inward looking and that Ukrainians need to come together and that they are, and I'm gonna speed up. So, Generally, there's a lot of myth making. Um, we have a lot of new symbols being created. Yellow butterflies. What does that mean? We don't know because he made it up for this book. what do the these things mean? They didn't mean anything until they happened. we have the, like the tractor that pulls the, the tank and we have petron the dog and we have this new idea of the astronaut that does something that's not really clear to me. and so that's a big part and I think that's always a part of children's book that's not specific to war, but I think that it, it takes on new importance in war. things that I noticed, the books are highly gendered. Um, and I think this is sort of a reflection of the reality of mothers staying with children, fathers going to fight, uh, but they do use feminisms, which are, I'm not gonna explain it all, but feminine versions of nouns. And it's really considered very progressive and um, it seems to be mostly standardized at this point. Uh, also we see that language has changed a lot in a lot of words that even 10 years ago were considered sort of like dialect or Western are just part of the language. So children's literature is working. It's changing Ukrainian language. There is no suji in these books. all right. What do we see to help children? simplistic explanations of complex events, explicit lessons on how to behave. Don't touch those bags if you don't know who left them there. Um, this is what happens when you hear a air raid siren. this is like, don't go to any place that could have minds. We see a lot of like, encouragement of, of more pictures, of drawing. People draw, like, uh, art therapy, reading therapy, talk therapy. There's, that's happening in very explicit ways. Uh, we see authentic depictions of the trauma that they've experienced of being separated of death, of spending times in the basement, in the dark. We see humor. Um, Victoria and Melina's, uh, excavator makes a surprise appearance in one of the books, and they say, hear from a different book. and we see like bunnies. They're like, all right. They tell the tractor he can pull them around just to make him feel like he's youthful, even though he is much slower than they are. And, you know, these are just features of children's books. what do these books teach us about Ukrainians, even superficially. Ukrainians have tons of pets. Everyone has a pet, and like, it's just all, they're all about animals and nature is also very important. and also mustaches are in, and I can't explain this, but they are everywhere and I think we know where at least this one comes from. but some of the books are unsuccessful and I think they're unsuccessful is because they were published too soon and things change too fast. And now they come off as sort of vapid or, um, too lighthearted. Some of the books don't really make sense. There's like too many things happening and, and there's no through line. Um, sometimes they use, this is the ear pin bridge and this is the spirit of nature saving the people, which in retrospect doesn't really feel right to me. Confusing visual me metaphors like, what are these apples? Why are they in water? Why are they with kma, ma, why do the birds look like that? Why is there this number on her arm? Is it binary code? Is it a reference to the Holocaust? We don't know. but this, I will say, is a book that was published, written by an, an author not living in Ukraine. And I think that there's a big difference there. light and darkness often used as metaphors everywhere, but here it's taken to like a more extreme level. And we see, and I think this is important, well, we see that Russians are dehumanized and I think that this is basically unacceptable in books in English, uh, which is why they will not be translated. But I think it's very important that they're being dehumanized because it's the only way to survive the war. And, um, hope the, the good books say that hope is specific, that the war will end, that death is a part of life that you will get through this, but you'll change. And thank you very much.

Speaker 10 46:19

Thank you. Thank you so much, Allie. Um. Not only giving us a view to children's literature, but also letting us touch the books themselves and see the images, and at the same time have a sense of the broader context of the book market. And now we are very pleased to have Anna offer us her presentation, which is entitled Ukraine's Contemporary Literature After the 2022 Russian invasion, A powerful message of hope Amid adversity. Welcome Anna.

Messages of Hope Amidst War

Speaker 7 46:47

Thank you. It's very nice to be standing. I was sitting, um, in the corner and I said, I'm gonna break my back, my neck. Just looking at the beautiful visuals that, you were showing, uh, just a second ago. my presentation, says hope. It says that I'm gonna be talking about literature of Ukraine after 2022. but there's also gonna be a lot of, because, hope usually. Becomes much more important when there is a lot of tragedy, when there is a lot of sadness, and when we are almost losing that hope. And my conversation about Ukraine's literature after 2022, wouldn't be authentic, wouldn't be possible without mentioning the people, who were creating Ukrainian literature and who are still creating it in some way, but who are unfortunately no longer with us. only a few days ago on March 3rd, um, the world celebrated International Writers' Day. And as of today, there have been at least 235 Ukrainian, uh, writers who were killed after the start of the full scale Russian invasion. So those people were killed in action as soldiers. They were killed as volunteers. They were killed in their homes as civilians across Ukraine. They. if you want to know more about these writers and also people of culture, I encourage you to use, to check this website. It's a joint project between Pan Ukraine and the Ukrainians Media. It has a Ukrainian version, it has an English version, and I was part of this project writing about the people, who were killed by Russia. the way I started working on this project was, was very difficult for me. So, uh, just, just very briefly, I'm, I'm a journalist. what I do for a living is that I talk to people, I ask them questions, often uncomfortable. and it's fine if you're an investigative journalist and you ask people, you generally dislike, potentially corrupt politician, uncomfortable questions, you don't really care about hurting their feelings. but after the full scale invasion, my job, made me ask a lot of uncomfortable questions. People who lived through trauma, people who survived occupation, people who, lived through a lot of really terrible things. And now part of my job is talking to people who lost somebody they loved very much. And this is an example, I was talking to the widow, although she, she doesn't like this word. I was talking to a wife of the Ukrainian author, Alexandra Minho, who after surviving occupation of her son, after fleeing her son while it was still occupied, came into Ukraine controlled territories, volunteered for the Ukrainian armed forces and was serving, in the eastern direction. And, um, in 2023, he was killed in action. So in many ways, Ukrainian literature right now is discovering people who unfortunately have already been killed. So you learn of amazing authors, of amazing poets of. Just great people of culture when it's unfortunately too late, you can no longer talk to them. And Ukrainian literature right now, Ukrainian publishing right now is very often publishing the books of the people who are no longer able to write any more books. The story of Alexandra Minshaw was really personal to me for many different reasons. Uh, my dad is also in the Ukrainian Armed forces. So talking to people in, in many ways linked to Ukrainian armed forces is difficult. It's personal. but another reason was that Alexander, before joining the Army, he actually managed to write a book, its memoirs of him living under Russian occupation in Heron. And that book was published two weeks after Alexandra was killed in action. So we actually never get to hold his book in his arms. He saw the digital version of that book, and it was very dear to him. His wife said that he was talking about it all the time, even when he was in trenches, he didn't have a lot of internet access. He was just super passionate about it. I read this book and this is one of the most positive, one of the most hopeful books you could ever imagine, especially taken into consideration that it was written under her son, occupation and these books, myself, Fox an Occupation and actually talks about his life, him, his wife, uh, dear two children and dear Cat Fox. the cat has read fur, that's why it was called Fox. and actually when the family managed to flee for Sodi, also rescued the cat with them. And it's a very positive book because basically he's laughing at Russians, he's laughing at occupation. He's very hopeful that Ukrainians are gonna be coming soon. Every missile, every bomb that he hears around herson in vicinity of Herson, he hopes that it's Ukrainian armed forces. And you know, it's, it's, we're, we read it now, once Herson is liberated, and once the strikes take place, like against the city every day, but back then it was a very different reality because on one hand wasn't being bombed all the time because the Russians were occupying it. On the other hand, people were actually hoping for the bombing because they saw this is the Ukrainians, these are our guys coming. so this is one of those messages of hope that he managed to send to us the readers. And unfortunately, we discover his writing, after, after he was killed. This is another example. Victoria Amina was, was a friend. She was a Ukrainian author. Um, she was writing a lot of children books and then she switched to, um, adult books. she was also killed by a Russian strike. in, before her murder, she published this, magnificent, um, article that encourage you to read. And it's basically talking about why, why Russia and manuscripts don't burn. But Ukrainian manuscripts burn all too well. It's talking how, while the West is still discussing, should we cancel Russian literature? Should we not cancel Russian literature for Russian? This is, this is really not an issue because they are canceling Ukrainian literature quite physically by targeting the authors, by targeting the writers and so on. So the Western privilege to discuss what, to cancel, what not to cancel. Ukrainians don't have that privilege. Ukrainians are just dying out as authors, as people of culture. and I encourage you to read this because. You can see a lot of parallels between Ukrainian literature right now as there is a big demand for what Ukrainian writers have to say, how they reflect on the current war and what was happening exactly a hundred years ago when Ukrainian literature was also experiencing a boom, so-called Red Renaissance. And we all know what happened to all of these talented writers. So 85% of them were killed by the Soviet regime or this summer. I myself got to work a little bit on the stories of hope or stories of resilience about Ukrainian culture. So together again with Pan Ukraine and also English Pen, I got to interview Ukrainian people of culture. So it's not just writers, it's also musicians, archeologists, historians, and so, so on. to ask them, how are you doing? How are you surviving and how is through your work, how are you making Ukrainian culture survive all of this through your work? And it's quite fascinating because I got to talk to a writer who lived in Heron through the entire occupation. And while in Heron there were organizing an underground, uh, book festival. So basically they found some places where they could access wifi without too many interferences from the Russians. And sitting in these underground cafes and bars, Russians, maybe 10 meters outside of that cafe, they're basically launching a book festival where they were criticizing Russians, making fun of Russians, and basically doing everything for what Russians, if they found out would've easily killed them. the book also consists stories of other authors who survived occupation. Bucha authors who were working in the left Bank of Heron, which as you may know is still under occupation, has been badly damaged after the Kafka DAM explosion and so on. And while a lot of these authors have been extremely damaged by the full scan basin, they were also extremely resilient and extremely hopeful. They were telling me about all of the new projects that they were working on, how they were, launching new theater performances, adaptations books, and so on and so on. And they were extremely happy that they were able not only to share it with Ukrainians, but also share it with the world. I did a bit of a study of the new titles, that are being published in Ukraine. They have been published in Ukraine after 2022 and analyzed basically, what are the key words or definitions that have been present in the titles by Ukrainian authors, both in Ukrainian and in English. So you can see Ukraine and the titles is still the core definition, so it's almost everywhere. Um, but the language is, is actually very diverse, but also quite, quite resilient. Quite, quite realistic, but also quite hopeful if you see, so people often talk about loss. They often talk about war, death, drama, and so on. But you can see such words as beginning tomorrow, humane, brave, support, mobilize, volunteer, activism and so on, which kind of shows you how the Ukrainians are processing what's happening right now. what is happening to them and what is happening to, um, your country. So I've interviewed many different authors asking them what, what is the key message? What are the key messages that you want to deliver to your readers as you publish your stories, as you publish your books, novels, fiction or not fiction. And for a lot of, authors, it was a way to cope and to reflect of what they personally experienced and basically share their own lived experiences, trauma and so on, on paper. for other authors, it was also a literature about identity. So I've interviewed Jewish Ukrainian authors who were writing about how they finally reconcile these two identities and how they no longer have a conflict of who they are. They know who they are very well, and the war in, in many ways pushed them to understand that. it's very interesting what's happening right now in Ukrainian literature is that. It's decentralizing. So in the past there were a few big bigger publishing houses. There were a few bigger household names. and, and it, it was very central around cave. You know, the cave art scene or maybe deliv art scene right now. You would have book festivals, you would have small publishing, you would have different literary events across Ukraine. So I'm originally from a tiny village of, a thousand people in the vie region. And, um, I just, uh, recently came back from helping to organize a literary festival in a small town of around 50,000 people. You know, this is something that's happening in Ukraine amid the war. As there is more demand for art, there's more demand for culture because this is a way for people to reflect on the trauma without speaking directly about it. Because you can find metaphors, you can find a lot of stories that connect you, that connect you with your potential readers. Finally, the word home was extremely common, was extremely, common in many Ukrainian titles and many stories that have been published in Ukraine after 2022. for a lot of Ukrainians, writing right now is like coming home. It's a way to process the current reality. Thank you very much.

Promoting Ukrainian Literature Internationally

Speaker 10 58:58

Thank you so much, Ana. I'd like to thank, uh, the entire panel for, their thought provocative and searching presentations and also keeping to time so that we can have, 13 minutes for conversation. I was struck recently in ve for K Arsal when I got out of Ska Station and I saw a queue, a line that stretched down the street for a mile, and it just showed that in the midst of the war, how important. Literature is and how important it's that people read it and read it together, which is a very beautiful thing. So, uh, we have a question, uh, at the back. Thank you. Thanks. Comments.

Speaker 8 59:36

Hello everyone. Thank you very much for presenting, for sharing your knowledge. It was very interesting. I do have two questions, one for Ali and one general for everyone. So the first question is to, uh, what do you think are the reasons why they're on American market? Just 15 books of Ukrainian books and how we can address those, uh, reasons why. And the second question is general for everyone. How do you think we can promote Ukrainian literature in America? And also, for example, in my university, I'm from a nice university. We don't have in library notebooks on Ukrainian, you know, but there's big Department of Russians. And how do you think we can address that? Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 1:00:21

thank you. I, you answered the question. It's because of Russia. I mean, and Russian studies just dominates and Ukraine doesn't exist, and that's just, and, and like, it's, it's hard to believe, but there's a trickle down effect, right? So if, if people didn't teach Doki and universities, children wouldn't read, you know, Russian books that are translated into English. The, the presence in the university establishes it as a real literature and a real culture that that counts and it takes, it takes a while. It doesn't happen overnight. Right. It might take a couple decades. I don't know what the stats on this are. Um, but it's hap Russia since the, like the 1917 revolution, right? When Russian studies became established in the West. We've believed that it counts as a, as a big literature in, in a large country. And, and so because we're seeing it happen with Ukraine, somewhat belatedly, although it happened earlier in Canada, and then we have the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, but they've been working very hard and there's just, it's just like a drop in the ocean. I, I think it's, I think it's gonna take a long time, uh, like we, we, that so much has been said about this, right? Alex said that Ukrainians aren't trusted as, as narrators. we can't believe Ukrainians. So why would we think that their, their literature is biased? but I, my answer to what to do is just to keep plotting along and translating one book at a time. I dunno, buy the books, request that your libraries buy the books. Don't buy books from Russia.

Speaker 10 1:01:51

Who would like to take this question about promoting Ukrainian literature? Don the police first.

Speaker 3 1:01:55

Yeah. I would like to address the question about the, library not having books. There's a lot you can do. I'm speaking from the student's perspective. So as a student of, uh, as an alumni of Darmouth College and as a student of, uh, the University of Notre Dame, I can attest that there is a librarian whose duty it is to fulfill students' requests. So when I saw that Dartmouth College Library, very Baker Library lacked certain items, I made a request and that's how those items came into library. And when I came to. the University of Notre Dame, I, well, I hoped for, for better and I found much better because, uh, Hasbro Library has some unique first prints of the 1920s, 1930s exile literature in Ukrainian language. It also has the dis amount of translations. however, unfortunately for, like, for all of you, a lot of those books are like in, at my place right now because I'm reading them. But there, there is a lot you can do. So initiating the demand for Ukrainian books on your possessions, that's like one of the way.

Speaker 10 1:03:15

Very good advice. Make requests of librarians. Tatiana, please.

Speaker 4 1:03:19

Yes. I would say, uh, that actually we are, on the right way because, Ukrainians present, uh, literature, uh, more active, uh, and, uh, uh, we are, um, in, uh, focus of, uh, attention and sometimes, in, uh, international communities. I, uh, tell about interesting books, uh, just written or classical books, and I hear the question is it translated, uh, into English, German in Polish and so on. And I know that no, not translated. So, uh, this is, uh, I suppose this is, uh, not, uh, only contemporary, uh, problem. This is, um. problem in general. We need more translators who, are, proficient in Ukrainian as well as in, the language of targeted language. Uh, and, and this is urgent problem. We need more and more and more these people. And of course, I, we, should, uh, fight for markets, uh, with the cultural activities.

Speaker 10 1:04:31

It's a really good point, and it's important to note the, new program that's been developed out of Harvard. Uh, the Translating Ukraine Initiative, which is about professionalizing and, uh, translation from Ukrainian into various languages and to bring translators together to share best practices, which is a wonderful first step. And it usually comes down to resources. Before, um, we go to this question, Ana, do you have anything to contribute on the question of promoting? Okay, great. Uh, Emily, please.

Challenges in Translating Ukrainian Literature

Speaker 6 1:04:55

Thank you. Thanks everyone for the discussion. I think this current discussion is really. Significant. So I am actually at the Ukrainian Research Institute, but I'm not part of publication. So just to, so my questions are coming. I wanna actually say two things, if you don't mind before I ask my question. But Camila, I mean, I think one thing to note and to share with all any students in the audience is that students have a lot of power in this situation. Because when your universities see that you want to read this type of book, like the says, like you ask the librarians to do it, that is literally their job. And then I think student demand will also help influence faculty to then add Ukrainian books to their syllabi. I also work a lot with the American Association of Ukrainian Studies and one of the things we're trying to promote is to get faculty that teach like world literature to put a book by a Ukrainian author in a world literature syllabus, so that it's not just, oh, we're doing Slavic literature. Let's also read some Ukrainian. Like let's make Ukrainian be one of the foundational literatures in in bigger literature class or intro intro classes. But for that, we need translations. So that leads to my question, which is for the, I know you're not all translators, but, I think, I mean there's obviously so many huge gaps in the representation of Ukrainian literature. Could, I would be, be really curious from all of you, since you come from different areas, if there's one kind of really obvious gap where you think translation initiatives should be focusing. I would be really, really interested to hear that. So thank you.

Speaker 10 1:06:18

Would anyone like to, uh, tackle that in terms of gaps of books from Ukrainian that are, let's say, absent in English?

Speaker 4 1:06:27

Of course, cont contemporary, uh, actually this is my focus. That's why I, I am selfish. Yes. contemporary literature. This is about, um, this is about the war, the war, ongoing war. And, if, uh, citizens of other countries have these books, uh, they would understand better, uh, what is the nature of this world, that this is colonization, all this history, all these traumas, uh, which are. Um, implicitly, uh, reflected in contemporary books and, uh, of course some classical works. Uh, as far as I know, even, um, uh, aan kyki is not translated still, so, uh, I'm shocked this is, um, the novel, uh, we can be proud of. So yeah, there are many, many periods, many gaps.

Speaker 10 1:07:21

Thank you.

Speaker 3 1:07:21

Yeah, yeah. Can I

Speaker 10 1:07:23

please,

Speaker 3 1:07:23

like, I would say that, um, the problem I see from my perspective is originalism. That absolutely dominates the translators, the field of translations from Ukrainian. That's why I'm doing butcher poet anthology, because it is about decentralizing because I feel like Kiev poets and leaf poets are well represented. And when we talk about. I don't know, a version from Dan Kiva, but we don't have anyone, like anyone else, like we didn't have like a co couple of years ago. Okay. Then we are going slightly to like villages in some smaller towns. Ukrainian culture exists all over Ukraine. It's not only the major cities. So I would say that's, that's the problem I'm working with.

Speaker 5 1:08:14

I think we should point out, or I would like to point out that Grace Mahoney is here and she's the series editor for Lost Horse Press, which has, um, taken the lead in publishing Ukrainian poetry in the United States and has gotten a lot of recognition and it's a two person operation and it's based out of someone's house and, um, doing amazing things. Um, I think there, I always want more in Ukrainian literature and translation. I, there is a lot of poetry available. There are not a ton of novels available. I would like to see more children's literature published because it's fast to translate and publish, and I think that a lot of headway could be made very quickly. and I also, um, I think that it is important to publish contemporary literature, but I think I have a slightly different opinion. I think that there's sort of a, a trendiness, and I don't wanna at all imply that the war is trendy, but I mean, in general, like in literature in general, there's this like, this hunger and this thirst for what's newest and it's not always what's best. And a lot of really wonderful Ukrainian literature has been ignored and skipped over. And so I'd like to see us publish more from the thirties and forties and fifties and sixties. And that's, that's where I would like to focus my energy right now.

Speaker 7 1:09:26

if I can add, I would say it's not just, the lack of translation is one thing, and it's also the fact that, us Ukrainian author journalists, and so. We are still very much owned, locked by the big publishing houses in the West. It's very difficult to break into that. I'm telling this as someone, I published one book in English and the second the stories of resilience. It's, it's, it's being translated into English. This was more like, kind of like small scale effort by a few enthusiast or smaller publishing houses. It's really difficult to actually be working and standing your ground with a lot of bigger publishers, uh, because they're not sure you can sell, therefore they don't wanna work with you. They prefer working with American British, like they prefer working with your own authors. We'll write about Ukraine. So, when I was. Working on stories of resilience. I was in London over this summer and, and a ton of, writers wanted to meet with me, like British writers who recently called all published books about Ukraine, like how they went to Ukraine for two weeks, or, um, one, she spent like a summer in, in Russia, and she published the book that was my Ukrainian summer.

Speaker 2 1:10:44

oh God,

Speaker 7 1:10:45

my husband, they were all bu you know, but they have a name in their countries. so the publishers preferred that, you know, I, I was at The Guardian and, you know, I, so I was talking to them, they were like, yeah, but we would love to have your stories. But, you know, we have our own in-house writers, so, you know, of course we would rather pay them and work with them because, you know, they're our own staff and so on. And, and the same goes for publishers, and I think they also think that because most Ukrainians. Are not native speakers, it would be difficult to find good translation and it's just complicated. So I would also say that there's interest on Ukraine, on literature about Ukraine, but not necessarily literature by Ukrainians. And I think that's a big issue how we as Ukrainians, we often dunno how to pitch ourselves and we don't have the context and it's a big problem.

Speaker 10 1:11:39

I'd like to thank Anna for that last comment. It's very important all our panelists and to recommend all of you to, if you haven't, heard it already. There's a wonderful new podcast that's actually hosted by Chuuk and William Blacker wonderful translator and, and, and scholar in the UK called the Ukraine Shelf. And it addresses this very issue. What are the spaces on our shelves? It could be filled with Ukrainian literature that need to be translated, need to be consumed in read. and hopefully we can keep this conversation going. I'd like to thank all of you for your attention. Would you please join me in thanking our panelists today. Thank you very much.