Ukraine in the English language literature

Today’s session of the GABFEST speaking Club (at Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) was full of different activities and events.

The official topic of the session was “Ukraine in the English language literature”. The Club’s speaker T. Gavryliuk   presented modern fiction books where Ukraine and Ukrainians were mentioned and described – J.Safran Foer’s “Everything Illuminated” and M. Lewicka’s “The short history of tractors in Ukrainian”. Both books are funny in black humor style and portray Ukrainian immigrants and post-Soviet Ukraine in rather controversial sarcastic manner.

In Australia Ukraine appeared in a book of a different genre. The Sydney-based writer with Ukrainian roots John Hughes had success in 2004 with a family memoir, The Idea of Home, which went on to win several important literary awards. “The Idea of Home: Autobiographical Essays” won both the National Biography Award and the NSW Premier's Award for Non Fiction.

The National Biography Award, established in Australia in 1996, is awarded for the best published work of biographical or autobiographical writing by an Australian. It aims "to encourage the highest standards of writing biography and autobiography and to promote public interest in those genres".

Its administration was taken over by the State Library of New South Wales in 1998.

For today’s session John Hughes was kind enough to participate in a video conference with the Ukrainian audience. He told us about the history of the book’s creation. The club members asked him numerous questions about his Ukrainian family and his life in Australia.

 The club member Ksenia has read to Mr.Hughes an English translation of a classical Ukrainian poem by Taras Shevchenko. This poem is the quintessence of the Ukrainian “Idea of home”. Mrs. Ludmilla has read the same poem in its original version – “Садок вишневий коло хати…». The Australian author has highly appreciated the translated poem and the sound of Ukrainian language he remembers since childhood.

The Club thanks the writer for an enjoyable conversation and looks forward to receive a gift from the Australian publisher “Giramondo”. The owner of this publishing house, Dr. Ivor Indyk, is a professor of literature, a formidable critic, a publisher of important books and an arbiter of Australian letters, someone who knows, and is known by, everybody in the Australian literary world. As a child of foreigners in Australia, Dr. Indyk has developed an ear for the nuances of language and special interest in migrant voices.

In the second part of the session we talked to our American friends. The PCV team shared with us information about their numerous projects in Dnipropetrovsk and other interesting things. Mr. Joseph took great interest in a collection of Ukrainian classical authors translated into English which were on display during the session.

The session was very educational and has a great success with the Club members.

Participants – 31 persons.
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