 Welcome to the British Library, I hope you can hear me okay I'm Roli Keating, I'm the Chief Executive here and it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you all to this unique and very special celebration of Ukrainian literature and culture. Welcome everybody here at the library, welcome too of course to everyone watching online and to those watching in libraries across the UK. I think we have live streams tonight to libraries in Leeds, Kenilworth in Warwickshire, Sauston in Cambridgeshire, Fleet in Hampshire and Bristol so a whole community of library goers coming together. We are very proud today to be part not just of a pan UK but international synchronized event a worldwide reading of Ukrainian literature. It's the brilliant initiative of our friends at the Berlin International Literary Festival working in cooperation with Frankfurt Book Fair and German Pen and we're delighted to have been able to join in. Public libraries of course have a long and proud tradition of providing haven and support to refugees and others in need and I'm pleased to say that today's event is just part of an ongoing program of activity across the UK, across the library and the cultural sector more generally to provide relevant support to people of all kinds who are affected in so many ways by the current situation. My pleasure is simply to give thanks to our collaborators in tonight's event to the public libraries as part of our living knowledge network across the UK to SILIP, to libraries connected to Arts Council England and the Ukrainian Institute here in London. Without further ado I'm going to hand over now to your host for the evening to introduce our speakers and our readings and our videos and everything that's going to happen. She is a broadcaster, books editor for Monocle 24 and a board member of English Pen among many other things. Please welcome Georgina Godwin. Thank you. Thanks very much to Rowley and hello and welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for coming. Now over the next 90 minutes or so we'll have a combination of readings, recordings, interviews and live discussions all obviously as you know on the topic of Ukrainian writing. There'll be readings and conversations in Ukrainian and if you don't understand the language please just take the time to sit back and listen to the the rhythm of the speech and appreciate the beauty of its rhythm. All pieces in English translation will be read by Amari Douglas. Now let me introduce you to him because I think you'll probably recognize him Amari. So Amari is Bafta and Olivia nominated. He's well known for his breakthrough role in Russell T. Davies hit series It's a Sin. That was the first British TV series so directly to address HIV and the AIDS crisis. Amari received an Olivia nomination for constellations and recently starred in Cabaret at the Kit-Kat Club in London's West End. Next he's going to join Sky's I Hate Susie 2 and that of course the much anticipated second series of Billy Piper's Bafta nominated drama series. It's headed to screens later on this year. We open tonight's event with a brief reading of a piece by Taurus Shevchenko by way of the British Library. Shevchenko is one of Ukraine's most famous writers regarded by many to be the forefather of modern Ukrainian literature. The translation is by Vera Rich, an accomplished translator of Ukrainian work who was well known personally to British library staff. This piece is taken from a personal email sent from Vera to a previous British library curator where Vera admits, I finished it with tears running down my face. Amari. And I shall gaze on step and field. Once more, I shall behold them. If God in mercy grants me freedom, though I may be old then. Then I'd go back to Ukraine, go back homeward wending and they'd receive the old man there with welcome, glad, and friendly. And I would, having said my prayers, rest for a while at last there. And I would, but such thoughts are vain. It will not come to pass so. But how can one live without hope? Being deprived of freedom. Teach me how it's done, good people. Or I'll lose my reason. Thank you. Very, very moving. Many Ukrainians find themselves in countries all across the world through both desire and circumstance. Well, we were delighted to interview Ukrainian poet Irina Shivalova for this event from China, which is where she currently lives. We spent over an hour with her, so the full recording will be available online after the event at a later date. But tonight, we give you highlights of our conversation. And after that, Amari will read Irina's poem Love Fish, followed by Irina in her own words. The other way round, you go first. And then we'll hear from Irina. Thank you. The love fish lives in the large body of the river. It swims in it like a pendulum, back and forth and in a circle, fastened to the heart's axis. It patiently meanders from the water's roots to its spreading branches, swims paths that are covered with only your traces. The love fish sings with a frog's mouth with an ant's voice. Oh, how ugly it is, how blind. Not worth the slightest mention in the thinnest book. So hungry that it each shadows touches traces of kisses on the warm throat of the day. It knows out of all names, your name is the dearest. And so swimming into the deep wells, it sheds large round stone tears, falling heavily to the bottom through the thick clear water. The love fish knows that your name rings like bracelets on the wrists of a gypsy dancer, that it echoes like a bag of copper coins scattered in a large empty church, or like the sound of soldiers in the square, throwing down their weapons all at once. A thousand swords, your name is sharp. When taken tenderly beneath the tongue, it pierces the mouth, and the tip comes out right through the lip. Swim, love fish. While your big tree of water grows, while the iron hook in your lip lives its quiet life, keeping you towards and tenderly pulling ever closer to home. Hello, everyone. It's lovely to be joining you today. Even though I am not physically in the UK, it's really nice to be able to join online. And I would like to start with thanking the British Library for this opportunity to speak to you today and for this event as well. My name is Irena Shovalova. I'm a poet. I am a translator and a scholar. So I wear many hats. I am from Kyiv, Ukraine. I do have strong connections and very fond memories of the UK, because I spent three years of my life living in the UK in Cambridge, where I did my PhD degree. And now I'm speaking to you from Nanjing, China, where I currently live and work. So welcome from me. And I will read you a couple of my poems. You know that with all the names, your name is the sweetest, and therefore, flowing deep into the well, it makes big stone tears. In the circle, they are lying on the bottom, through the transparent water. Rybalubov knows that the name of your name is Brasledin Tsiganky, a dancer and a dancer. From him, where is the lunatic? He started in a big, empty church. Someone spilled a bag of copper coins, or soldiers on the clutches. At the same time, they threw weapons. Thousands of hats. And your name is sharp. Take it gently under your tongue, but when it comes out of your mouth with a sharp brush, it comes out of your mouth. Flow. Rybalubov. Until your big tree grows. Until you live your quiet life with an iron pot in your mouth. It keeps you in touch. It keeps you in touch. It keeps you in touch. And when it comes out of your mouth, it brings you home again. If you look at the Ukrainian literature, particularly of the post-independence decades before 2014, when the war broke out, you will see an absolutely amazing diversity of voices. And so now we do associate in the way Ukrainian literature was the war that is happening, which of course looms large over the writing that people are producing right now and have been producing since 2014. However, if you look back at that period, you will see that Ukrainian writing has been playful, experimental, fun. It has been about so many things and continues to be about so many things, right? By no means do people write on the above board. However, of course, you know, some things that became emotive in people's writing has also became emotive, a prominent one in our daily lives. So this shift towards writing about war is very much in response to the shift that has happened in people's daily lives. A lot of writers actually say that it has become difficult for them to write at all. Some of them focus on the projects collecting people's testimonies, on documental work. Some of them actually just volunteer and support the efforts of the Ukrainian armed forces as much as possible or the civilians. So the very role of the writer has changed and of course writing has changed, I think, in response to that. However, we also need to remember that just writing about war or writing about conflict has been part of Ukrainian literary tradition for some time. Because unfortunately, our history has not been the most peaceful history. It's been quite turbulent. We have been historically torn between different empires, right? And most recently, we were part of the empire of the Soviet Union. And so as a result of that, there have been limitations on what people can write about. There have been very painful experiences that needed to be processed through writing. However, I think if we really look at those, well, two decades, let's say, right? The 1990s. So Ukraine became independent in 1991. Since the 1990s. The knots to the 2000s. And then, you know, the time until 2014, we will see that whatever could not happen in Ukrainian literature before, because of the censorship, because of the limitations on writing in Ukrainians, we saw in the 19th century, for example, because of all sorts of reason, the suppressive atmosphere of the Soviet Union as well, it was happening in those decades. It was an absolutely amazing time. People rediscovering the heritage, for example, of the so-called garroted Renaissance, right? The generation of the writers in the 1920s, right? It was a blossoming generation that was literally physically destroyed by the Stalin's regime, right? All of that was happening. A lot of that has been put on hold due to the war. However, we need to understand that it's all there. It's waiting to happen. And for now we are processing this painful experience. But we are also looking forward, all of us, who really also move on and speak about all those other things that just have moved into the background rather than being in the front of what we are writing about. So I'm really happy to speak about the anthology of queer literature that we published in 2009. It was the first such anthology in Ukraine. And it was very important for me as well as a member of the LGBTQI plus community to sort of make that happen. And we were quite young. So we were the three co-editors of the anthology. And I really think sometimes that maybe, if I were at the present point in my life, how much scarier it would be to happen because really when we published it, we had quite a few negative responses from, for example, the members of the supporters of the sort of far right, which is not prominent in Ukraine, but it's still, you know, it's present. It's there. We had threats when we were presenting our anthology at the literary festival in Lviv. We literally had attempts of physical attacks. And at one point we had to have an event where us and also our guests, including writers from abroad, were presenting. We had to have a police cordon around the theater just because, you know, people were physically there and physically threatening us. So it was a scary experience. And it was difficult experience. So even finding a publisher in Ukraine at that point who would just agree sort of to support this book was quite, quite a challenge. So I think on the one hand, you know, we have seen a shift in sort of in societal opinion since then. And I think actually, especially maybe paradoxically so after the outbreak of the war. So the most recent surveys actually show that especially with the prominence that members of the community have taken also the front lines and the publicity around that. Actually, public support has grown, but it hasn't grown as dramatically as we would like to see. So, you know, if I were doing this now, I would probably be more aware of the challenges ahead, but it was lovely to be, you know, young and naive and just to say, you know, we will make this happen. We did, which was brilliant. So this book was an anthology of writing from all sorts of different countries and languages in Ukrainian translation was the first time made available for the Ukrainian reader. And of course there is also, you know, there's writing, queer writing in Ukraine as well. However, that anthology is still waiting to happen. So maybe that's a project for when we come together next. But I just would like to say that I am so happy that the attitudes, the public attitude reception of the community is changing. That's very important that I hope we will keep hearing more and more clear voices. And I think we also hopefully will see sort of openly queer members of the writing community being a little bit more vocal and, you know, putting their work out there. You know, paradoxically, I was thinking recently, some of that queerness embedded in the texts actually gets erased sometimes in translation. So for example, you know, some of my war poems, they mentioned my partner and my partner is female, right? But that's something that if you have non gendered pronouns, for example, as some of the pronouns are in English, that just gets lost in translation. However, in Ukrainian, it's there. And I'm glad that, you know, I am able as a member of community to also be reflecting on this war through the prism of this aspect of me and my experience. I do think that poetry has this very special power to document things, but also to create a new language or re-sync, reshape, remold the language that we have at hand to express things like war, for example. I remember in 2014, it was quite a coincidence. Two of my books came out that year, but it was also the year when Russia has annexed Crimea, when it sort of supported the separatists in the Donbas and, you know, the war started. And that year, I was basically on a book tour with my two books presenting them, talking a lot to people. And one question I kept hearing was how do we process this? Or how do we speak about this? It was really a question of language. It's just not having the language there to speak about war in the context of our lives. Because, for example, my grandmother was someone who experienced war, the Second World War firsthand. However, since then, except for people who went to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war, right, we didn't have, and especially our generation, didn't have any contact with war directly. We really didn't have the language. We didn't know how to process these experiences. It's really sad to say that it feels like now when the recent escalation of the war has pushed people again to process these horrific things happening on an even greater scale, it feels like now we have developed some language for it since 2014. And honestly, I wish we didn't. I wish we haven't. But we have. It's still very painful. But poetry is the tools that can birth a new language. I even honestly hesitate to call it a tool. I keep saying this word and every time I feel bad about it because it's almost like having a part of your body, like a body part, like an extension of you that can do something amazing. And that's what we are fortunate to have. And so, you know, that's why I write poetry and I try to share my poetry. And I hope it resonates with people. I'm really, really happy that Lost Horse Press in their whole contemporary Ukrainian poetry series went with a bilingual format. So really including both the original Ukrainian and the English translation. I think it serves several purposes really. So on the one hand, you really have just access to that original text. And if you wish to, you can read it. It serves the purpose of perhaps serving the needs of the scholars as well. Because as you know, sometimes it can be difficult outside Ukraine, for example, to access Ukrainian poetry, certain editions that you're looking for. And so by bringing them sort of in this contemporary publication with the English translation to the scholarly community as well, it serves the purpose of just making it accessible there with your fingertips. You can study that material. And I think very importantly as well, this is something that is absolutely accessible in the classroom. So university classrooms, you know, for example, students who might be just starting to learn Ukrainian and don't feel confident enough, they can access that, right? It can be taught and again taught to different levels of students. But also I think just for a reader to have contact, even not to read the original text, but to have it there and to see it and to, you know, to touch it in a sense, to touch the other language, right? It's the same as perhaps listening to text, to a text being read in a language that you don't understand. But at least you get to hear the music of the text. I love that. I absolutely love listening to other poets, reader work in the original, even when I have no clue whatsoever. It's a special music. And so I feel that for all those reasons, really, it's a wonderful decision. So it really helps to promote Ukrainian poetry. It helps to make a resource for teaching and it helps readers to come into contact because that beautiful saying is never quite the same in translation. I'm a translator myself. I translate poetry. I do my best. We always lose something no matter how good a translation is. So just having it there, I think it's just such a valuable saying. So it's a brilliant, brilliant lineup in that contemporary poetry series. I would really highly recommend that you check out other titles as well. Dear members of the Ukrainian community in Great Britain, I am extremely happy to have the opportunity to speak to you, to come back to you. And when I say Ukrainian community in Great Britain, it has increased, it has increased recently, it is very important. One of the best reasons, I know that many of you have to leave your houses because of war. It is very familiar for my family, because my mother is now living in England because she could not live without her own home. And it is extremely difficult for me to be far from her and not be able to support her. You can now know that I am in China and traveling between China and England is very difficult. But I wanted to say that this is an absolutely incredible possibility for us to give the world to know about Ukraine, to give the world to know about what is happening in our country, in what sense we are the descendants of our culture. And I understand that in difficult circumstances, when we were still alive at home, it could be the last thought of our day. Because first of all, we have to support our BRP, so as to restrain ourselves in its honor, to become our safe home. But beyond all of this, we are always in contact with our British family. We are in contact with the people who help us in this situation. I think it is England and Great Britain have definitely revealed a great level of support. I think it is a very important gesture that is connected with our countries in the future. But when you talk to these people, when we talk to them, it is also an opportunity for us to show them what Ukraine is, what Ukrainians are. And I hope that you will not feel that this is a burden, that you will find some joy in it and some possibility to discover something new for yourself. But most importantly, what I would like to say, and I absolutely believe is that we will return to our homes, whether these houses will be there, and if they are destroyed or destroyed, we will rebuild them. And I am absolutely sure that this war will end our victory. How much you yourself know, I will not tell you this, how much our guys and girls are standing on the Ukrainian land, standing on our homes. And so I would like to say, be strong, be brave, but be brave. Give yourself time to survive, to realize and let go of what we are experiencing now and hope that this war will end soon. We wish you all the best. You are the most faithful. It is very, very difficult. Be not in the house, but in such conditions, being worried about your loved ones. So you are extraordinary. And let's hope that this will end soon. All the best to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for that. And I have some more people to introduce you to. So we're going to start here with Uyem Blaka. He's a translator. I don't know why I came on with my phone. Sorry. I'm expecting a call. Uyem Blaka is a translator of Ukrainian literature. He's translated countless writers into English, including Irina Shirolova. He's an associate professor of comparative East European literature at University College London. He's the author of Memory, The City and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe. He's also going to be judging the 2023 International Booker Prize. Next to him, Nina, Nina Murray, a Ukrainian-American poet and translator. She's author of the poetry collection Alsistus in the Underworld, as well as many award-winning translations. Perhaps most notably for this evening, she was the recipient of the inaugural Ukrainian Literature in Translation Prize, awarded by the Ukrainian Institute in London. And finally, we have, yes, a clap. You were right. Katarina Bubenko, who is a Ukrainian poet, a prose writer, a columnist, a screenwriter and a playwright. Alongside her poetry, novels and short stories, she's written three books for children, including Cappy and the Whale. Now, that's going to be released for the first time in English translation later this year. And Katarina is also joined by her translator, Dmitry Tupchenko. So thank you very much for coming to help out. We had this conversation. Katarina speaks perfect English, but she feels it's a Ukrainian event. She should use the language, and also just wants to make sure that whatever she says on a sensitive topic is absolutely clear. So thank you all so much for being here. If I could start with the two of you who do most of the translation work. I wonder what it is that draws you, because obviously you're writers in your own right. What draws you to translate? I think like every writer, you're first a reader, and you discover so many wonderful books that you enjoy reading that you want to share. And as a bilingual or multilingual reader, whatever, that for me is what drew me to translation, what made me want to translate. Also, I grew up reading a lot of books and translation and loving them. And so the least I can do is to turn around and hope to pass it on. And for you, what are the major challenges then in translation work? The length of some of the books. It's... She's done some long books. I have done some long books. And some people send me some other long books and say, would you be interested in this? It's a very Zen art when a book takes... Who knows? I mean, a writer takes years to write a book sometimes. A translator sometimes has... Well, certainly less than the author originally had because we were on a schedule. But a book can take a year to a year and a half of work and every day. So it's a very Zen practice at that point. And what about the whole issue, William, of being lost in translation? How faithful can you be to the original text whilst making it still beautiful in another language? The most difficult question. Yeah, it's something you always have to struggle with when you're translating. You're constantly thinking about it. I think there are different schools of thought. There are those who think that the reader of the translation should be aware that they're reading something that's not from their own culture. It's from another culture. And you should have this kind of experience of strangeness and otherness when you encounter it and it shouldn't be made easy for you. But one of the great cliches when people review translations, they say, oh, it feels like it was written in English and that's supposed to be the greatest compliment. I think you have to think about the reader always and what's the reader's experience going to be? What do you want the reader's experience going to be? You want to make the reader's experience too difficult because you'll just put them off. But you also do want to challenge the reader. You do want the reader to understand that this comes from somewhere different. This is about things that they're not familiar with and that has to be part of the process as well. So it's always walking this kind of tightrope between those two things. But Katrina, as a writer, I wonder how easy it is to pass your work across to somebody and have something obviously different come back. I mean, do you have to consciously let go of it? Is it no longer your work when it's gone on to a translator? In my opinion, good translation is a piece of art which transforms your words into the words in another language but still leaves them as your words. It is a very complicated assignment from both sides, whatever you look at it. And I do work with a lot of translators who translate my works of art. Sometimes it takes weeks to translate idioms or jokes. To translate jokes is one of the hardest things for a translator. We have a team of six people at Random House, Publishing House. And it includes about 20 people who translate their works of art. We have a team of six people at Random House, Publishing House. It includes about 20 rounds of email chains just talking about minors' schools of not exact translation but just about the technicalities of the translation of her new book. I don't think my colleagues will be able to understand because I'm from Bogbok. I also translate artistic texts. It's all the same. Nikola never gets rid of some sort of fuck-up which is then stopped in the streets. I wonder how it works. I mean, I've interviewed many writers who have almost nothing to do with their translator. There's the odd query that will come up on email. And other writers who know their translators so well that they're almost finishing each other's sentences. How does that work for you? From time to time, when I'm in a good mood, I'm hyper-responsive, and when I'm in a bad mood, I'm a control freak. Sometimes, for example, when I'm writing a letter to a grandfather who's long time dead, and I'm saying, hey, grandfather, when I'm receiving a translation back, the translation sounds like, hello dear Santa Claus. So, her attitude is that she will be re-reading the translations now and now again that she will be able to avoid such mistakes. And she will be facing a very big challenge next year because one of her books will be published by a big Chinese anti-communist, Chinese anti-communist publishing house, and she will have no clue and no chance to understand what is written there. You're both nodding along to this. I wonder what kind of relationship you put with the person who's work you're translating? I mean, I've never had any problems so far. But in terms of an intense relationship or the odd email? I've had different experiences. Some authors I've not had any contact with at all and others, like with Serena, we had a very close kind of process. We sent each other drafts back and forth with comments. And she's great to work with, but we negotiate, because I think she recognises that the ownership of the translation is an interesting question because obviously it's her work, but every word there is written by me. And my name also goes on it. So it's really this kind of very interesting exercising and sharing ownership, and even in a sense authorship of the text, even though I wouldn't put myself on the same level as her in that sense, but you're still part of the process. But the other big project I've got at the moment is a novel by a writer called Mike Johansson, an Ukrainian writer who died in the 1930s. So you can't talk to him? I can't talk to him, and I really wish I could, because there's so much very, very specific and specialised vocabulary and references to things that would have been things from that time, which are really, really difficult to get my head around. It's such a frustrate... It's an experimental avant-garde novel, so it's a real challenge. I don't know if I did meet Mike Johansson, I don't know if the first thing I'd do would be to shake his hand, give him a hug, or punch him in the face, because he really gave me some headaches. But I can't do it. But in that sense, it's also you share it with other people. You have to ask people who know about the places that he writes about the history that he's writing about, who know about things like, I don't know, the parts of a rifle or a gun, which I don't know anything about, but he writes a lot about that. You're always talking, it's always a process that involves lots of people. It's definitely never just you and the author, it's always more people as well. That's a really good point, because it's not just the language, is it? It's the culture, it's all the background knowledge you've got to have. You're pushing forward with the novel by a great Ukrainian writer, Oksana Lutsushina. The novel is called Ivan and Phoebe, and it is about the political unrest in the 1990s that led to the independence of Ukraine. So obviously she's done her research. But in the course of translating, I have to verify the names and the dates and the places that I mentioned and find a way to either explain them somehow to a reader who is not familiar with that entire milieu or do something with it. And I found some things that basically, in the back and forth, we realized that she misremembered some of the facts, and then I misremembered some of the names and where she had perhaps just a last name. I put the first name wrong, and I cited a son and not the father. So it's always a lot of work, just like William says. You end up spending all of your time with encyclopedias and dictionaries and historic dictionaries and historic thesaurus. And specialized... We look up diagrams of things all the time. It's not just guns. Many, many things. But of course guns, sadly, appearing more and more now. I was chatting to Andre Kirkoff, who we'll hear from in a little while, and I was asking him about if he was working on any fiction, and he said, I can't. I just can't do that at the moment. I am consumed by the war, and that's what I write about. And I wonder how the impact of the war has changed what's written. In the same way as Andre Kirkoff is doing, I cannot write about anything else but war, and that's what occupies my mind recently. But I can write fiction. And I can write fiction. It's a blow surprise for me as well. For example, I was surprised when I was writing in 2014, 2015, 2016 poetry and few books as well. I was thinking that I'll be writing about love, but it just happened that it was about war. Nina, I wonder what you feel about that. It's hard to tell, I think. I think I agree with Sir Hesha Don, I believe, said that we will see the impact of what is happening now about 8 to 10 to 12 years down the road. There is this notion of a certain amount of time has to pass before things can be evoked without being relived. And I think from the experience of working with an Aksana musician and Aksana Zabushka, perhaps it is 20 to 30 years before we can see this reality that we are living through now manipulated in a way that writers feel they need to manipulate it. As a writer, I haven't been able to write poetry, which is what I write. I haven't been able to do very much myself. I mean, I wonder when we look back at the great canon of Ukrainian literature, if there'll be a kind of striation as if in a piece of rock that there's just been this clear as if an earthquake had happened and how it will affect the publishing industry. I mean, I know that the local publishing industry is really in quite a bad way at the moment. Yes, obviously this has been very difficult for Ukrainian publishers and we invite everybody to support Ukrainian publishers by buying their books and subscribing to their books and subscribing to whatever they're doing. Please do, even you can buy children's books and I think Katya has more to say about that. But I think similarly to their having been a Chernobyl generation, which is the generation that had their worldview shaken by that event and there were writers who came out of that, not necessarily writing nuclear literature, but writers who had that effect in common. I think it's hard to predict, but I think this war is going to have a massive effect on this generation of writers. And in terms of children's book, I know that there are a few Ukrainian writers who are making sure that their books in Ukrainian are sent out to refugees all over the world because it's so important that these kids grow up with some kind of connection to their birth culture. I would like to add something to the previous question. Did you ask about the canon? Will it be broken or will there be a change? No, because the whole story of Ukraine is a constant catastrophe and cataclysms. That's why our literary canon is a constant землет russe, as you formulated it. It will not be changed or challenged in any way because the history of Ukraine is a constant lineage of some catastrophes and wars and earthquakes. With regard to children's books, it's a very good question and I have to opine and highlight and state that children are very prone to rituals and reading with them or to them is one of the rituals. And I don't know whether you know that right now there are about 5 million people there are about 3 million children who are refugees right now who left Ukraine. And she was part of the project in Poland where the children, obviously, they left Ukraine without books. That was not the first priority. So right now the publishing houses are buying publishing rights for books and they are giving these books to Ukrainians. So they're buying it and giving it to Ukrainians. So they're buying it and giving it to Ukrainians. So they're buying it and giving it to Ukrainian children who are now refugees. Such projects, she knows, such projects are already in existence in many countries where Ukrainians are being displaced to. And we cannot give children back. They are friends from the kindergarten or from the backyard or their relatives sometime. But we can give them these books or their relatives sometime. But it's very important to keep this emotional connection with their previous life and books do serve this purpose. Yeah. William, just coming to you again, you're obviously not Ukrainian and I wonder how much help and support there is for the Ukrainian translator community. I mean, I know that I think the writer sent a Norwich here and really tries to support that. And there are various programs around the world. There are. But I think probably the most important thing that's happened in recent years is that the Ukrainian state actually started to invest in this. Which is one of the great tragedies of the war. Especially since the Maidan Revolution, there have been a lot of new cultural institutions created in Ukraine like the Ukrainian Book Institute, which is different to the Ukrainian Institute of London, but doing similar things, promoting Ukraine abroad. And they were set up after the Maidan Revolution when there was this kind of big civil society, surge in civil society activity in Ukraine. There was this understanding that we have to, alongside social and political change, we need cultural change, we need cultural development. And so you had, you know, this is the second year of the Ukrainian, there's a prize for translators that's given by the Ukrainian state, the Drachman Prize, which is, there are grants through various Ukrainian state institutions, which are really, really important, I think. And they're working with, they were working with publishers abroad, but unfortunately now, the money, the funding for those institutions isn't there anymore because of the war. So, you know, that's one of the sort of maybe less visible consequences of the war is the impact on just cultural institutions, cultural processes, even on the kind of economic basis that, you know, the book publishing industry functions. You know, it's really going to take a hit and it's really going to need a lot of support. I think the support is going to need to come from us more than from the Ukrainian state going forward. But there is new work coming out and your play, Cassandra, that's going to be staged in London later this year. Tell us about that because didn't that one win the Ukrainian literature in translation prize? Right, so I have to thank the Ukrainian Institute London and take this opportunity to highlight that the prize will be run again in 2023. There is a Ukrainian Institute London prize for Ukrainian literature in translation with the deadline of December 30th. And if anybody is interested in submitting or spreading the word, please do. The information is on the website of the Ukrainian Institute London. And yes, last year I was honored to receive the winning... the win the prize, I suppose. I was honored to win with my translation from the Ukrainian Institute London which has been a wonderful, wonderful project for me personally and also has found tremendous resonance here in the UK thanks to... thanks to the efforts of Maria Montagueva in the audience. But it has now been staged and will be performed at Omnibus Theater this October. It has never done... I believe it's a land speed record from a page to theatre. And I hope to see everybody there when it runs. Absolutely, so that's the Omnibus Theater in Clapham in October. And Katrina's First Children's Book in English translation available later this year from Puffin. So there is clearly a very valid place for Ukrainian literature here in this country and we need more of it. I'd like to thank you all very much for chatting to us and to welcome Omari back on stage to read some of Katarina's work with her. Something easier, say to me. Because everyone even in the smallest stone in this war turned to arms to defend their... say to me how it is because it's everything you have. When he is on the floor in a moment of shock even dead from the earth they stand up for their lives and when they see the voice of the night sirens say to me, because for this there is no name there is no time, no place, no dimensions, no sphere. But all this happens just here and now among the foreign markets school courts, urban buildings and everything that after this can be built, then love can be built to the dome of the ruined country. It can live in a powerful river it can wash the road every drop of blood. But until it's all over tell me about love. Better until the next night change the drinkable son at all nothing to tell me. Rest. Don't tell me how you are tell me something easier even the smallest stone has turned into a weapon to defend its own in this war don't say how this can be true because that is all you have. When the bell rings in warning and the shock wave takes your breath away hear even the dead rise up from the ground to defend the living. Oh how they will with longing like sirens in the night don't try to tell me because there's no word to describe it. There is no time no place no dimension no sphere it all simply happens here and now in quiet markets school yards suburban buildings after all this what can cure us maybe it's love love combined together the ripped edges of the wounds it can feed the powerful rivers and streams it can wash away the abuse properly mourn all this spilt blood but until all this is over don't talk to me of love till the pale light of early dawn replaces the flashes of dark night better don't say anything to me at all just rest. and slowly send roots into the heavens to grow up there in paradise past water past earth past sun warmed rocks midnight estuaries swallow sands the sea moves beyond the dark hills and light catches drops of mist from air opaque like milk we open windows and doors but silently repeat memorised lines because tenderness is such unstable material and to be faithful is structurally unsound the distance between us is relatively safe and the wind runs no fingers over our skin we are not trees but surely someday we too will stretch and grow into paradise many thanks to Katarina and Omari there our final interview this evening is with perhaps Ukraine's most famous contemporary writer Andrei Kerkov Andrei is the author of Grey Bees and Death and the Penguin he's been described as Ukraine's greatest novelist throughout the invasion he's published illuminating reports from Ukraine in newspapers and magazines all over Europe and America not only has he been a regular presence on radio and television but he's travelled far and wide to lecture on the perilous state of his country he has become in the process a vital voice for the people of Ukraine his book Diary of an Invasion published by Mountain Leopard Press on the 29th of September is an extraordinary book I've read it and can heartily recommend it to all of you a contemporaneous account of the war we recorded with him remotely from a stop on his travels in Europe after that our event will close with a final reading by Nicholas Amari Douglas thank you this piece is actually from a text which will be included in this second book about the war in Ukraine and it comes from the essay which is called Filtration and Poetry for me the most surprising thing about the little known activities of the filtration camps was the use of poetry torture or punishment shortly after the outbreak of the war there were reports that Ukrainian citizens and prisoners of war in camps and prisons were forced to learn the Russian anthem which is a slightly modified anthem of the Soviet Union but recently more and more often Ukrainians who went through filtration camps ended up in Russia and got through Estonia or Finland to Ukraine tell how they were forced to memorize the poem forgive us dear Russians at first I thought that some Russian poet wrote this poem on behalf of the Ukrainians but it turned out that this was not so the poem was written by the Ukrainian pro-Russian poetess Irina Samarina from Poltava she wrote it back in 2014 in response to a better known poem then Russian speaking Ukrainian poetess Anastasia Dmitruk addressed to the Russians we will never be brothers Anastasia Dmitruk's poem ends with the words you have a Tsar we have democracy we will never be brothers this poem in 2014 became quite a popular song now forgotten Anastasia Dmitruk is still active and continues to write poetry but now mostly in Ukrainian she also helps to organize protests around the world against the Russian war in Ukraine well actually the war started in 2014 not this year and in 2014-15 I published my diary of my done a book which included my notes from my personal diary about the events daily actually descriptions of the events in Kiev and in other places in Ukraine where I traveled during my done protests but from 24th of February a new phase much bloodier phase of this war started with the all-out aggression of Russia on Ukraine we started with bombing of practically all major cities in Ukraine and I was woken up at 5 o'clock in the morning by explosions outside my window in the central part of Kiev and since then of course everyone in Ukraine was asking yourself or himself what is happening and how it will end and will it end and I was also trying to understand and trying also to explain to others abroad what was happening and what can be the result of this war and I realized actually after writing many articles for different international media that a book consisting of these essays articles and the notes which were not published yet would be a better explanation of what was happening before the war and what was happening in the first five months of the war in 2022 so I started with a text that I wrote back in December last year when the question was still discussed in Ukraine whether there will be a war how to deal with Russia now what Russia is capable of doing because nobody accepts legal status of the year after annexation and this book actually apart from daily description of what was happening in these days and actually description also life of my families and friends before the war and during the war but it gives a lot of also I think answers to more political questions political and geopolitical well I started writing in Soviet time when I couldn't publish what I wrote and that's why actually I didn't care about censorship I actually started writing prose from inventing jokes and me and my elder brother we participated in illegal joke telling competitions in Crimea where we once won six bottles of Soviet champagne thanks to the jokes that I invented but then quickly I started writing short stories from the age of 1718 novels and of course my first texts of prose they were parodies of the Soviet life they were satirical pieces and since the Soviet Union disappeared there was no more need for satire of the Soviet system but I still loved black humor and probably elements of satiric prose and although I have less of them now but I still hope not to lose my sense of humor and of course my prose evolved together with me I mean I got older and my prose became I think more in a way professional maybe deep although I cannot say really when I wrote better but I'm happy with my life and with my destiny and with what I write and there are four novels with which I was not happy and I never published them and I will never will so I think I can say that now every time I write something I try to write something new for myself also to use the process of writing as a process of self-education because to write a good novel means actually from another university you know for 18 years actually I was sending my novel synopsis and different letters to publishers worldwide first illegally through my Polish friend in the Soviet time and then already legally with post and later even with taxes and the first time I received a positive answer after 18 years was a two fax machine in Kiev from Swiss publishing house The Organis and I was shocked they wanted to publish Death Independent in German and they offered me at that time a huge sum of money I think 5,000 Swiss francs and the fax was very long I mean it was like five meters and I was reading it and I was very not puzzled but I didn't know what to do because I realized that actually my life consisted already for many years from writing and preparing packages to send a brought to foreign publishers to offer my works and suddenly I realized that if I signed this contract I don't need maybe any more preparations of synopsis maybe it will work now through Switzerland of course I signed the contract and the Swiss publisher Daniel Kielch who was a friend of Federico Fellini he asked me to learn German language in order to present my books in Switzerland, Germany and Austria I learned German and this was actually the turning point in my career I was 36 years old and at this point I became a professional writer while the linguistic issue in Ukraine was always used by politicians to divide the voters and of course Ukrainians speak in many languages I mean Ukrainian is the only official language and it should remain so but 40% probably of Ukrainians are Russian speakers although I think every year these percentages becoming smaller and now because of the war and because of the status of Russian as a language of the enemy a lot of young people refuse to to speak or to learn Russian but apart from Russian, Ukrainian, Crimean and Tatar language is widely used Hungarian language in Transcarpathian region of Ukraine Slovak and Romanian Gagaus etc for me as an ethnic Russian who was born in Russia and grew up in Kiev and Kiev was at that time Russian speaking city for me Russian remains my mother tongue and I write fiction exclusively in Russian language and I'm continuing to do so but I wrote non-fiction in Ukrainian and I published a couple of books written in Ukrainian so my loyalty is not under question but of course the fact that I write in Russian does create problems and does create negative feedback from some of Ukrainian intellectuals who are fighting against Russian language and Ukrainian they see that the Russian language is one of the reasons why Putin decided to try to occupy the country to a next whole of Ukraine you know what many Europeans realize now and they never thought about this before that they know almost nothing about Ukraine Ukrainian history, Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian literature because until today the major Ukrainian classical writers and philosophers were almost never translated in foreign languages because in the pre-Soviet times of course Ukrainian language was not popular and there were about 40 degrees banning usage of Ukrainian language in different spheres signed by different Tsars in the Soviet time the communists also were afraid and they were actually considering anybody who spoke Ukrainian in Ukraine either a nationalist or a peasant and so in Ukraine of course only pro-communist ideologically correct literature was published in any way and this literature was not interesting for international readers and now we have a paradox when some young Ukrainian writers are becoming more or less popular or more popular in Germany in Poland in other countries but at the same time the classical Ukrainian literature remains unknown Ukrainian literature is very dynamic is very different from Russian contemporary literature and Ukrainian literature is much more European because it is not based on Tolstoy and Chekhov's traditions it is very engaged and it actually depicts all the problems of today's Ukraine which is probably the best way to learn about today's Ukraine by reading the books by Yurkovenichuk Yurko Andrukhovich Oksana Zabushka Markiyan Kamysh Taras Prochaska and others Ukrainian literature is very young because practically in the new generation the Soviet Ukrainian writers appeared only in 1997-98 and the first books which were published at that time they were autobiographical novels by female writers about sex, drugs and rock and roll because this literature of 1960s didn't exist in the Soviet time but since then actually Ukrainian literature evolved and changed several times because of the relative literature with hundreds of books about the war but also dozens of very interesting books about Ukrainian history and Ukrainian life Ukrainian writers find themselves in a very interesting situation when they can actually be more popular abroad than in Ukraine in the sense as writers because in Ukraine many writers are popular as public figures as people who give or comment on the political situation at the same time people who know their names and know the opinions of the writers not often by their books because the book market is really almost non-existent in Ukraine and an average print run of a popular writer is 1,500 copies which is very little for a country with 40 million population but at the same time writers have a huge authority and they are listened to they are asked questions they are interviewed all the time and they are trying to participate in all processes including political process well in the classical Ukrainian literature the main conflict which was present was always about the land the the border of allotments etc in the recent Ukrainian books of course the conflict with Russia is more present than anything else and I think since Russia will remain the neighbor of Ukraine which means the menace will remain and the topic of Russian-Ukrainian relationship will also remain very present in Ukrainian literature but at the same time I think there will be also more popular genres because I mean we do have our crime stories and love novels and historical novels and adventure novels which deal more with fantasy worlds or invented situations than with the reality well I think Huma helped me to stay sane in the Soviet Union not only me I think everybody who survived the Soviet system and remained normal probably was saved by literature by culture and by Huma because Huma is the best protection irony, cynicism mistrust comes together when you think about Huma as a psychological protection and Huma is also very good arms I mean it's a weapon it's a non-aggressive weapon to fight with aggressive things with negative things input in corruption and nepotism and all the things in Ukrainian society well I mean the first place I went when I arrived first time in my life to Britain in 1988 was British Library Patterns department because at that time I was writing a novel which is called The Big Ford Fuse and I was interested to find out anything possible about the life and works of little known in Britain mining engineer William Big Ford I found actually some material in British Library and it helped me a lot in the work on the novel so I mean I love libraries, I visited many libraries I mean I have events in many libraries in Ukraine and in other places and for me actually library is a club is a club for people who want to become more clever, more informed more cultured and more curious because if you are not curious you don't have questions you don't have questions, you don't open books Dear friends if you are now not following your own desires in Great Britain in London in Manchester in Scotland no matter where the French or English culture learn it because it is it has forced you to but it can't force you to change or become depressed or lose hope each one may need to use to become better more experienced, more educated more informed Meet with English learning to live actively. Only activity, in principle, will help you to wait for our victory and your opportunity to return home to Ukraine. If you want to help Ukraine to win this war, it means also that you can do your bit by reading nonfiction about Ukraine and to find out more about Ukrainian history and culture. Because otherwise, you are supporting the country you don't know. But I'm sure since you've heard so much about Ukrainians and Ukraine, it's much better and more interesting to know more about the country you sympathize with and you support. What should I have taken but didn't? I took money and ID. I grabbed two rings. People in books always take jewellery. But I left a cross on the wall, a family heirloom and the painting of a Gelda Rose. I chose to leave all the icons behind to guard my home and my city. Kiev. I didn't take any of my photos or the portraits of two Ukrainian writers. Shevchenko and Gogol. I watered all my plants. But how long will they last if I never return? Who will defrost my freezer? I left behind my heart. Grandmother's photograph still on the shelf. A moisturizer. A new one. I left it in the bathroom. I've never even used it. Stop thinking about the moisturizer and watch the road. I focus on the road. What else did I leave behind? I left everything behind. I took only the important stuff. My mother, my daughter and Dusha, our pedigree cat who squealed and stank out the car all the way. It will be 30 hours at the wheel soon. I'm fleeing from Kiev because it's being bombed by Russians. I desperately want to sleep. But the cat just shat in the car and the stench keeps me awake. What did I hope to take but wasn't able to? My husband and the father of my daughter. Two different men. My daughter's father is a writer. Seeing him holding a gun was just weird. I left my friends. Our half-made film. The streets of my town. The chestnuts will soon be in bloom without me there to see them. What should one pack to start a new life somewhere? What right did they have to take the life I've already built? Have you ever wondered what you take with you if you thought you might never come home again? I've been thinking about it for the past eight years and more so these past few months. But I could never settle on anything. Death is more defined. You just know that it's the end of everything. But war is the end of all that's good and the start of all that's bad. For everyone, how could anyone prepare for this? What should we pack in order to? What? Start a new life somewhere? But what right did they have to take the life I've already built here? No. We didn't deserve any of this. But listen. No one deserves to be bombed, to flee, or to die. Just because the dictator of a country gone mad desires your destruction. For someone out there, this was the last year they could have got pregnant. Someone else was just finishing decorating their new apartment. Now a shelter for refugees. Welcome. Someone had just finished paying off a debt. Now back in the red again. Another person lay dying in bed. Surrounded by loved ones who will now die on the road. Or be bombed. A child was graduating from school. But you, my child, you'll never graduate. We were about to open our own theatre, the Playwrights Theatre, on the 12th of March. We'd been planning it for so long. A theatre with space is for all the important words to resound. Ukraine has never had a theatre like it. We put our hearts into it. Our money too. It's all gone. It's been crossed out. Watch the road. Don't cry. We never managed to open. So really, it never actually existed. But Mariupol had a theatre, or used to. You can see the pictures before and after the bombs. Only you can't tell from the photos that under the rubble was a bomb shelter with hundreds and hundreds of ordinary people hiding in it. So far they've pulled out 300 bodies. I'll never tire of reminding people that these are Russian bombs. That it is Russian hands pressing the buttons to release the bombs that fall on us. What is the point of national culture if it has no influence over the people of that nation? What is this culture we think of as great? Does this Russian culture delight you still? Stop stressing. Look at the road. Look at the road. Instead of getting upset, I remind myself but I've been looking at the road and nothing else for the last eight years. Eight years we have been engaged with the subject of war. Eight years we've been trying to shout to the world to alert them to the Russian military threat. And only after the 24th of February did they finally hear us. That is the only positive I can see. On the first of April the Royal Court is hosting readings of plays by Ukrainian playwrights about their experience of war. We're sick and tired of this experience. We dream of writing, making films, talking of things that are not war. But after the 24th of February these other things were close to us and will remain so for the rest of our creative lives. We've been condemned to focus on the regions of pain, despair, injustice, death but also on the mightiness of the human spirit, on patriotism and love. We are ready. But first we want to win and return home and water our plants and we need your help. Thank you everyone. That concludes tonight's event. I hope that you have enjoyed listening to readings in both English and Ukrainian and that for anyone who does understand Ukrainian or is Ukrainian in the UK that it resonates with you and that you felt some connection to your own country through this event. I'd just like to quickly thank our partners on this event who've been incredible. Libraries Connected, Salip Arts Council, Ukrainian Institute London and you heard about the translation prize in this event so I hope that you keep an eye out for news of the translation prize and that you also follow our amazing speakers. Can we have a final round of applause for our speakers and Georgina who hosted this event so wonderfully?