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.
August, 6 – 
August, 16 – Activate English 3.4.
The Gabfest’s Australian volunteer Mr. Eric told the basic things about the discovery of Australia and compared the stories of James Cook and Christopher Columbus.
