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Ukraine

photo of Lake Lemuria
Photo by Alex P on Pexels.
Queer Shores of Ukraine
By Alex Averbuch
in the evening you looked through the photos / that I collected in empty homes
Translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk, Max Rosochinsky & Alex Averbuch
Multilingual
The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist in a 2 x 3 grid: Clean, The Light That Burns...
The Watchlist: October 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Stuck in a reading slump? Check out Tobias Carroll’s recommendations of six new books of fiction, poetry, and graphic lit to read now, translated from Greek, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and more.
The covers of the six books featured in the Watchlist: The Murderer's Mother, Forgottenness, The...
The Watchlist: January 2024
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends six books to start off the new year, from a classic of Danish science fiction to Álvaro Enrigue’s reimagining of sixteenth-century Mexico.
Clasped hands
Photo by Eduardo Barrios on Unsplash
The Last Letter of My Body
By Alex Averbuch
gardens are in bloom: cherries, oranges, mandarins / I talked through three phone cards in three days
Translated from Russian by Anne O. Fisher
Multilingual
An overhead shot of an empty brick elevator shaft
Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr
vox
By Iryna Shuvalova
I want to speak like a woman who burns a pile of old paper in the street / and the flame dances but you can’t see her face
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
Multilingual
A sunset behind a line of trees
Photo by Niels Weiss on Unsplash
vesper
By Iryna Shuvalova
do you see—the trees have gathered at the gates in the twilight
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
Multilingual
The covers of the books featured in the list
Your #IWD2023 Reading List
By Words Without Borders
In honor of International Women's Day 2023, WWB recommends 10 forthcoming books written and translated by women and published by small presses.
Illuminated highways in Kyiv at night
Photo by Levi Kyiv on Unsplash
a moving grove
By Iryna Shuvalova
go escape while you can go escape
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
MultimediaMultilingual
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Sweetlust, Stravaging Strange, Black Foam, and...
The Watchlist: February 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends exciting new books translated from Arabic, Croatian, Spanish, and Russian.
The covers of the books featured in the list
World Kid Lit: The Best of 2022
By Jackie Friedman Mighdoll, Johanna McCalmont & Claire Storey
Join the editors of the World Kid Lit blog on a tour of their favorite international children's books of 2022, from picture books to YA fiction and graphic novels.
A black and white image of a hairbrush with an engraved handle
Photo by Michèle C., licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Making of Tenderness
By Lyuba Yakimchuk
Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk wonders about the production of household goods—and tenderness—during wartime.
Translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk
MultimediaMultilingual
A bust of Lenin lying on the grass
Photo by Daniil Onischenko on Unsplash
Apartment No. 9: Goodbye, Lenin!
By Oleksiy Chupa
“We toppled Lenin!” exclaimed Firman after a dramatic pause.
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
The book covers of Animals in Our Days, Brisbane, Flowers of Lhasa, Radio Siga, Linea Nigra, and...
The Watchlist: May/June 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books translated from Tibetan, Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, and Croatian.
A black-and-white image of battered market kiosks
Photo copyright © Kseniya Fuchs
Conservation
By Kseniya Fuchs
I knew I was born here and I would die here.
Translated from Ukrainian by Ali Kinsella
The Lights of the Donbas
By Danyil Zadorozhnyi
then there’s the war / that flabby, shriveled, animal word “war”
Translated from Russian by Yuliya Charnyshova & Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
The book covers of At the Edge of the Woods, When Women Kill, People from Bloomington, Let Us Believe...
The Watchlist: April 2022
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends noteworthy new books translated from Ukrainian, Indonesian, Persian, Japanese, and Spanish.
February 23, 2022
By Danyil Zadorozhnyi
“second time I’ve lost my home,” she utters with hatred / “officially, this time”
Translated from Ukrainian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler & Yuliya Charnyshova
Until the Threads Burn to Ash
By Aleksey Porvin
Hold an assault rifle with my hand, use my mouth
Translated from Russian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
There’s No Getting Out
By Olga Bragina
we won't recognize this city anymore
Translated from Russian by Elina Alter
Multilingual
A watercolor of a middle-aged woman from the shoulders up
An image from Igort's "The Story of Serafima Andreyevna," translated by Jamie Richards.
Voices from Ukraine: A Reading List
By Words Without Borders
While some of this writing engages directly with the country's history of armed conflict with Russia, the majority addresses more quotidian themes.
Letter to Ukraine
By Danyil Zadorozhnyi
Like the border between the word leave / and the concept of returning
Translated from Russian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler & Reilly Costigan-Humes
Doors
By Żanna Słoniowska
“That evening they rang the doorbell . . . . I never saw him again.”
Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
People Behaving Badly
By Susan Harris
Many greet the clean slate of a new year by pledging to chalk up only virtue and moderation.
Haunted Swing
By Andrei Krasniashikh
Above all else I appreciate skill and showmanship . . .
Translated from Russian by Tanya Paperny
MultimediaMultilingual
Chernobyl Poems
By Lina Kostenko
On the banks of the Prypiat a devil is sleeping
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
Crow, Wheels
By Lyuba Yakimchuk
Joyful relatives poured vodka for themselves / and for the dead
Translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk & Max Rosochinsky
MultimediaMultilingual
[The whole soldier doesn’t suffer]
By Lyudmyla Khersonska
The whole soldier shrugs off hurt.
Translated from Russian by Katherine E. Young
MultimediaMultilingual
Graphic Novels at WWB: The First Ten Years
By Susan Harris
The narrative threads that weave through the last ten years tell a tale in themselves.
Metamorphoses of Reality: An Introduction to New Ukrainian Writing
By Oleksandr Mykhed
It is through the fantastic that the reader arrives at the everyday.
Translated from Ukrainian by Iryna Shuvalova
Multilingual
April 2045: The Hole
By Taras Antypovych
“And while we’ve been busy digging graves we’ve missed it all.”
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
Multilingual
The Rat
By Tanya Malyarchuk
“I poisoned you, my love,” Alevtyna purrs.
Translated from Ukrainian by Michael M. Naydan
Multilingual
Panda
By Sashko Ushkalov
“Looks like you’re a liar. Is that correct?”
Translated from Ukrainian by Iryna Shuvalova
Texts Written without the Author’s Knowledge
By Pavel Gol’din
The screech of streetcars falls silent.Juice trickles from a windfall pomegranatebranching—as though a monster had grown through the railsor lung tissue rottedand the bronchi and vesselsof a woolly and…
Translated from Russian by Nika Skandiaka
Multilingual
Fountain pen lying on top of stationary
Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash
Correspondences in the Air: On The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry
By Ilya Kaminsky
Octavio Paz once wrote that the modern poet “extracts his visions from within himself.”
Estuary
By Alexei Parshchikov
Once again, darling, yours is a resinous, intimate whisper.
Translated from Russian by Wayne Chambliss
From “A Short History of Dance”
By Marjana Savka
Listen, child, to a wise old wolf: / in dance everything has its own meaning.
Translated from Ukrainian by Askold Melnyczuk
An Address
By Ida Fink
It would be madness to delude himself into believing that Maria and the boy were still alive.
Translated from Polish by Philip Boehm
Memories of Chernobyl
By Mohamed Makhzangi
The entire city began to wash itself ceaselessly . . .
Translated from Arabic by Samah Selim
Learn
A Note from the Poetry Editor
By Ilya Kaminsky
My own joy in working for Words Without Borders is a chance to discover new voices-the thrill of finding a poet or translator whose music changes the way I view the world, the way I breathe, if only for a moment.
Girls
By Oksana Zabuzhko
By fourth grade, when Effie appeared in their class, Darka already had the rap sheet of either a budding criminal or a political leader...
Translated from Ukrainian by Askold Melnyczuk
The Wondrous Deer of the Eternal Hunt
By Svetlana Alexievich
He was a wildly lonely person. I loved him.
Translated from Russian by Marian Schwartz
Learn
From “Songs of Friendship and Love”
By Pavel Lembersky
On the scrap is a picture of Snoopy in dark glasses. What's this? I ask. Acid, she replies.
Translated from Russian by Jane Ann Miller