Ukraine

Taras Shevchenko deserves an entire school of translators, especially today. He arose out of serfdom to become a groundbreaking poet and an object of the ire of Russian Tsar Nikolai I. In the process, he did nothing less than help shape modern Ukraine, the largest country within the continent of Europe.

This is the first large-scale attempt to acquaint the English-speaking world with a poetess whose works can not only be read as the flowering of the Ukrainian genius, but as an invaluable contribution to the world literature as well.

A trilogy (Winds of Change, Beacons in the Darkness, Fateful Crossroads) published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the author's birth. The overarching theme of the trilogy is the growth of national and political awareness in Galicia in Western Ukraine in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Collection of short stories written by twenty-one Ukrainian authors: Marko Vovchok, Ivan Franko, Olha Kobylianska, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Modest Levytsky, Lesya Ukrainka, Vasyl Stefanyk, Les Martovych, Bohdan Lepkyi, Marko Cheremshyna, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Yurii Klen, Alexander Dovzhenko, Leonid Mosendz, Hryhorii Kosynka, Arkadii Liubchenko, Yurii Lypa, Anatole Kurdydyk, Oleh Lysiak, Ivan Kernytsky, and Ivan Smolii.

Collection of short stories written by twelve Ukrainian authors: Panas Mirny, Marko Vovchok, Marko Cheremshyna, Yuriy Fedkovich, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, Yevheniya Yaroshynska, Mykhailo Staritsky, Stepan Vasylchenko, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Vasyl Stefanyk, Olha Kobylianska and Ivan Franko.

Part of the series called Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature, the collection features select works by 19th and 20 century writers and activists Olena Pchilka, Nataliya Kobrynska, Lyubov Yanovska, Olha Kobylianska, Yevheniya Yaroshynska, Hrytsko Hryhorenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

This is a story of a group of Kiev students who are suddenly called up when Germans invade the Soviet Union. They valiantly, though at times unsuccessfully, defend their country from the German invasion.

The novel is set in a fictitious town of Zachiplianka, the centre of which is the old cathedral built by Cossacks. Since then the cathedral has remained a silent witness to the change of epochs and rulers that pass through Ukraine.

Presented here in Ukrainian with a parallel English translation, these stories reflect an era that was vibrant and progressive for the West, but was for the Ukraine permeated with tragedy. Writers include Vasyl Stefanyk, Mykhaylo Kotsiubynsky, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Mykhailo Yatskiv, Yevhen Hutsalo and Valeriy Shevchuk.

This short fiction anthology is divided equally between Ukrainian writers and Canadian writers of Ukrainian descent. It explores, for the first time in a fictional way, the complete spectrum of the Ukrainian experience, from the perspective of writers in Ukraine and Ukrainian writers in Canada.

Viktor Zolotaryov is an aspiring writer in Ukraine with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company. Although he would prefer to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see his work published, yet the subjects of his obituaries continue to cling to life. But when he opens the newspaper to see his work in print for the first time, his pride swiftly turns to terror.

Penguin Lost finds Viktor Zolotaryov sneaking back into Kiev under an assumed identity to undertake a dangerous mission: He wants to find Misha, his penguin, whom he fears has fallen into the hands of the criminal mob looking for Viktor himself.

The corpse of a distinguished general is found attached to an advertising balloon—minus his thumb. Police Lieutenant Viktor Slutsky is sent in to investigate. So, too, is KGB officer Nik Tsensky. They begin their investigations unbeknownst to each other, but quickly find themselves mystified about developments caused by the other.

What was the fate of Stanislav Perfetsky--poet, provocateur, and hero of Ukrainian underground culture? Evidence points to suicide. But some whisper murder. Some suggest the grand Eastern European tradition of coerced suicide. It may even be related to the religious cult ceremony he happened upon in Munich. Or that job as a dancer in a strip club for older women. Or, then again, it may not.

Marital troubles? Sick of life? Suicide the answer? Why not get yourself a contract killer? Nothing easier, provided you communicate only by phone and box number. You give him your photograph, specify when and where to find you, then sit back and prepare to die.

Moscow, 2013. Bunin, the Ukrainian President, has joined other heads of state in an open air swimming pool to drink vodka and celebrate with Putin. During his rise to power Bunin has juggled with formidable and eccentric political and personal challenges. His troubles with his family and his women combine with his difficulties with corrupt businessmen and demanding international allies, but it is his recent heart transplant that worries him most.

When Kolya moves into a new flat in Kyiv, he discovers an annotated manuscript hidden inside a copy of War and Peace and decides to track down its author, even if it means digging up the grave of a Ukranian nationalist who died under mysterious circumstances.

Called "the most influential Ukrainian book for the 15 years of independence", Oksana Zabuzhko's Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex became an international phenomenon when it shot to number one on the Ukrainian bestseller list and remained there throughout the 1990s. The novel is narrated in first-person streams of thought by a sharp-tongued poet with an irreverently honest voice.

Semyon is disturbed. He has woken up in the living room with blood on his shirt, an angry wife and no idea where he was the night before. When this happens several mornings in a row, he realises he needs to investigate.

Igor is confident his old Soviet policeman's uniform will be the best costume at the party. But he hasn't gone far before he realises something is wrong. The streets are unusually dark and empty, and the only person to emerge from the shadows runs away from him in terror.

A city-dwelling executive heads home to take over his brother's gas station after his mysterious disappearance, but all he finds at home are mysteries and ghosts. The bleak industrial landscape of now-war-torn eastern Ukraine sets the stage for Voroshilovgrad, the Soviet era name of the Ukranian city of Luhansk, mixing magical realism and exhilarating road novel in poetic, powerful, and expressive prose.

Yuri Vynnychuk is a master storyteller and satirist, who emerged from the Western Ukrainian underground in Soviet times to become one of Ukraine’s most prolific and most prominent writers of today. He is a chameleon who can adapt his narrative voice in a variety of ways and whose style at times is reminiscent of Borges. A master of the short story, he exhibits a great range from exquisite lyrical-philosophical works to intense psychological studies and horror tales.

In the darkest recesses of Ukraine, a war is raging. A journalist takes a research trip to the front line. Teenage girls wait for soldiers on benches. A medic mourns her lover killed in action. A heartbreaking, powerful, and bitterly comic account of what it is to be a woman in wartime.

A unique work of fiction from the troubled streets of Ukraine, giving invaluable testimony to the new history unfolding in the nation's post-independence years. This captivating book is Serhiy Zhadan's ode to Kharkiv, the traditionally Russian-speaking city in Eastern Ukraine where he makes his home.

These autobiographical stories display a mix of nostalgia and philosophical insight, written in a simple yet profound style looking back on a life's path that led Sentsov to become an internationally renowned dissident artist. Sentsov's charges seemingly stem from his opposition to Russia's invasion and occupation of Eastern Ukraine where he lived in the Crimea. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in August 2015 on spurious terrorism charges after he was kidnapped in his house and put through a grossly unfair trial by a Russian military court, marred by allegations of torture.

The book is a first person account of a soldier’s journey, and is based on Artem Chekh’s diary that he wrote while and after his service in the war in Donbas. One of the most important messages the book conveys is that war means pain. Chekh is not showing the reader any heroic combat, focusing instead on the quiet, mundane, and harsh soldier’s life.

Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a rival from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under constant threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. However, as spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace.

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.

Selections from prominent 20th century Ukrainian poets Ivan Drach, Vitaliy Korotych, Lina Kostenko and Vasyl Symonenko.

Selected poetry by a leading representative of Ukrainian poets from the 1960s movement known as the Sixtiers.

Collection of poems and essays written by one of the most prominent voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature.

Anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photographs and art. Includes works by Solomea Pavlychko, Volodymyr Dibrova, Mykola Kumanovsky, Kostiantyn Moskalets, Yevheniya Kononenko, Tania D'Avignon, Yevhen Pashkovsky, Valery Shevchuk, Vasyl Holoborodko, Natalka Bilotserkivets, Oksana Zabuzhko, Viktor Neborak, Oleh Lysheha, Yury Andrukhovych, Bohdan Zholdak, Oleksandr Irvanets and Halyna Pahutiak.

Oleh Lysheha is considered the "poets' poet" of contemporary Ukraine. A dissident and iconoclast, he was forbidden to publish in the Soviet Union from 1972 to 1988. Since then, his reputation has steadily grown to legendary proportions. His work is informed by transcendentalism and Zen-like introspection, with meditations on the essence of the human experience and man's place in nature.

In this fascinating collection of poems Jacob Shores-Arguello takes readers on an illuminating voyage through Ukrainian life. Set during the turmoil of the 2004 Orange Revolution, when the country trembled in the wake of political corruption and public outrage, Shores-Arguello's lyrics of a revolution provide a glimpse into a world at once foreign and familiar.

The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine brought about an emergence of a distinctive trend in contemporary Ukrainian poetry: the poetry of war. The poems collected in this volume engage with the events and experiences of war, reflecting on the themes of alienation, loss, dislocation, and disability; justice, heroism, courage, resilience, generosity, and forgiveness. The anthology brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine.

These robust and accessible narrative poems feature gutsy portraits of life on wartorn and poverty-ravaged streets, where children tally the number of local deaths, where mothers live with low expectations, and where romance lives like a remote memory. Zhadan creates a new poetics of loss, a daily crusade of testimonial, a final witness of abandoned lives in a claustrophobic universe where "every year there's less and less air."