Andrij Lubka | Ukraine

(b. 1987 in Riga) – one of the most interesting Ukrainian writers of the young generation; a poet, prose writer, essayist, translator, and columnist. The winner of many literary awards, among them “Debut” (2007) and “Kyiv Laurels” (2011), a recipient of the Gaude Polonia scholarship granted by the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Poland (2010, 2012) who has taken part in many literary festivals around the world from Rio de Janeiro do Istanbul. Lubka’s work has been translated into Polish, English, German, Serbian, Portuguese, Russian, Belarusian and Czech. In 2017, his novel “Carbide” was nominated for Angelus Central European Literature Award, while his collection of stories “Pokój do smutku” received the Kovalev Foundation (USA) award for prose. One of the stories in this volume served as the basis for a film. Lubka is very talented but also works with an outstanding Polish translator – Bohdan Zadura. This partnership has resulted in an absolutely extraordinary book. It’s only a half-truth to write that Lubka published a collection of stories. This book, even though it consists of several dozen stories, is connected by common themes and characteristic language, that’s why it reads like a novel that at times sounds like a prose poem.