The publication of The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology commemorates the tenth year of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series. Co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Series has recurrently organized readings in the US for Ukraine's leading writers since 2008. The anthology presents translations of literary works by Series guests that imaginatively engage pivotal issues in today's Ukraine and express its tribulations and jubilations. Featuring poetry, fiction, and essays by fifteen Ukrainian writers, the anthology offers English-language readers a wide array of the most beguiling literature written in Ukraine in the past fifty years.

'The extraordinary writers in this volume articulate the taste, the terror, and the dialect of war; they command their powers of description to face a shameless empire intent on annihilating them' Ellena Savage A selection of Ukraine's leading writers convey the reality of life within Ukraine during the first year of the invasion On 24 February 2022, the lives of Ukrainians were devastatingly altered. Since that day, many of Ukraine's writers have attempted to fathom what is happening to them and to their country. This anthology brings together writing from inside Ukraine, by Ukrainians, available in English for the first time. Here they document everyday life, ponder the role of culture amid conflict, denounce Russian imperialism and revisit their relations with the world, especially Europe and its ideals, as they try to comprehend the horrors of war. From tearing-downs of Russia's use of culture as justification of the war to moving descriptions of nights spent sheltering in corridors, poignant snatched moments with a husband on his single night away from the army, to descriptions of the eerie weather in the months leading up to the invasion, as if nature was trying to warn Ukraine, these essays reveal the texture, rawness and reality of life in Ukraine under war as never before.

Yuri Andrukhovych is one of Ukraine’s preeminent authors and cultural commentators. In recognition of his literary writings and his role as a public intellectual he has received numerous awards including the Herder Prize, the Hannah Arendt Prize, and the Goethe Medal. My Final Territory is a collection of Andrukhovych’s philosophical, autobiographical, political, and literary essays, demonstrating his enormous talent as an essayist to the English-speaking world. This volume broadens Andrukhovych’s international audience and will create a dialogue with anglophone readers throughout the world in a number of fields including philosophy, history, journalism, political science, sociology, and anthropology. In their introduction, Mark Andryczyk and Michael M. Naydan reveal a somewhat lesser-known side of Andrukhovych’s writings that places him alongside such writers as recent Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. Eleven of the fourteen essays in this volume, including his seminal work "Central-Eastern Revision" and a brand-new essay on the Russo-Ukrainian War, appear here for the first time in English. My Final Territory showcases Yuri Andrukhovych’s unique voice and provides insight into the Ukrainian experience of nationality and identity.

A mondegreen is something that is heard improperly by someone who then clings to that misinterpretation as fact. Fittingly, Volodymyr Rafeyenko's novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love explores the ways that memory and language construct our identity, and how we hold on to it no matter what. The novel tells the story of Haba Habinsky, a refugee from Ukraine's Donbas region, who has escaped to the capital city of Kyiv at the onset of the Ukrainian-Russian war. His physical dislocation-and his subsequent willful adoption of the Ukrainian language-place the protagonist in a state of disorientation during which he is forced to challenge his convictions. Written in beautiful, experimental style, the novel shows how people-and cities-are capable of radical transformation and how this, in turn, affects their interpersonal relations and cultural identification. Taking on crucial topics stirred by Russian aggression that began in 2014, the novel stands out for the innovative and probing manner in which it dissects them, while providing a fresh Donbas perspective on Ukrainian identity.

The publication of The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology commemorates the tenth year of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series. Co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Series has recurrently organized readings in the US for Ukraine's leading writers since 2008. The anthology presents translations of literary works by Series guests that imaginatively engage pivotal issues in today's Ukraine and express its tribulations and jubilations. Featuring poetry, fiction, and essays by fifteen Ukrainian writers, the anthology offers English-language readers a wide array of the most beguiling literature written in Ukraine in the past fifty years.

A selection of fifteen of Ukraine's most important, dynamic and entertaining contemporary writers Under USSR rule, the subject matter and style of literary expression in Ukraine was strictly controlled and censored. But once Ukraine gained independence in 1991 its literary scene flourished, as the moving and delightful poems, essays and extracts collected here show. There are fifteen authors included in this book, both established and emerging, and in this anthology we see them grappling with history and the future, with big questions and small moments. From essays about Chernobyl to poetry about Robbie Williams, from fiction discussing Jimmy Hendrix live in Lviv to underground Ukrainian poetry of the Soviet era, WRITING FROM UKRAINE offers a unique window into a rich culture, a chance to experience a particularly Ukrainian sensibility and to celebrate Ukraine's nationhood, as told by its writers.

Yuri Andrukhovych is one of Ukraine's preeminent authors and cultural commentators. In recognition of his literary writings and his role as public intellectual he has received numerous awards including the Herder Prize, Hannah Arendt Prize, and the Goethe Medal. My Final Territory is a collection of Andrukhovych's philosophical, autobiographical, political, and literary essays, which demonstrate his enormous talent as an essayist to the English-speaking world. This volume broadens Andrukhovych's international audience and will create a dialogue with Anglophone readers throughout the world in a number of fields including philosophy, history, journalism, political science, sociology, and anthropology. In their introduction Michael Naydan and Mark Andryczyk reveal a somewhat lesser-known side of Andrukhovych's writings that place him alongside such writers as recent Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. Ten of the twelve essays in this volume, including his seminal work "Central-Eastern Revision," are appearing for the first time in English. My Final Territory showcases Yuri Andrukhovych's unique voice and provides insight into Ukrainian experience of nationality and identity.

The 1990s were a period of tremendous artistic vigour, experimentation, and liberation for Ukrainian culture. The artists who emerged at this time unleashed a tidal wave of creativity that deliberately and aggressively reshaped inherited models. In this first English monograph on contemporary Ukrainian literature, Mark Andryczyk provides an in-depth analysis of the cultural explosion that engulfed Ukraine in its first decade of independence. The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction weaves a fascinating narrative full of colourful characters by examining the prose of today's leading writers. Andryczyk delves into the role of the intellectual in forging a post-Soviet Ukrainian identity, and follows these protagonists as they soar and stumble in pursuit of redefining their creative realm. In addition to introducing readers to vibrant literary gems, this book explores the artistic tendencies that determined the course of the Ukrainian cultural scene in the 1990s, and continue to shape it today.