Women’s prose writing has exploded on the literary scene in Ukraine just prior to and following Ukrainian independence in 1991. Over the past two decades scores of fascinating new women authors have emerged. These authors write in a wide variety of styles and genres including short stories, novels, essays, and new journalism. In the collection you will find: realism, magical realism, surrealism, the fantastic, deeply intellectual writing, newly discovered feminist perspectives, philosophical prose, psychological mysteries, confessional prose, and much more.
You’ll find an entire gamut of these Ukrainian women writers’ experiences that range from deep spirituality to candid depictions of sexuality and interpersonal relations. You’ll find tragedy and humor and on occasion humor in the tragedy. You’ll find urban prose, edgy, caustic, and intellectual; as well as prose harkening back to village life and profound tragedies from the Soviet past that have left marks of trauma on an entire nation. This is a collection of Ukrainian women’s stories, histories that serve to tell her unique stories in English translation. Substantial excerpts from novels and translations of complete shorter works of each author will give the reader deep insight into this burgeoning phenomenon of contemporary Ukrainian women’s prose.
The volume will include 18 contemporary writers: Lina Kostenko, Emma Andijewska, Nina Bichuya, Sofia Maidanska, Ludmyla Taran, Liuko Dashvar, Maria Matios, Eugenia Kononenko, Oksana Zabuzhko, Iren Rozdobudko, Natalka Sniadanko, Larysa Denysenko, Svitlana Povaljajeva, Svitlana Pyrkalo, Dzvinka Matiash, Irena Karpa, Tanya Malyarchuk, and Sofia Andrukhovych.
The volume is compiled, edited and accompanied with a critical introduction by Michael M. Naydan, Woskob Family Professor of Ukrainian Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Seventeen different translators from around the world have contributed translations to the volume.
Glagoslav Publications sincerely thanks Oksana Zhelisko, a talented fine artist who provided the cover art for this book. The painting “April” from the series Twelve Months-A Dozen Moods perfectly reflects the mystery of Her soul.
For those who wish to delve further into certain of the writers presented here, translations of novels by Maria Matios, Larysa Denysenko, and Iren Rozdobudko are currently available with Glagoslav.
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Contributor
Michael M. Naydan, Woskob Family Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the Pennsylvania State University, is a prolific literary translator of contemporary poetry and prose from Ukrainian and Russian. He has published over 30 books of translations and more than 100 articles and translations in literary journals.
His anthology of Ukrainian poetry, A Hundred Years of Youth (Litopys Publishers, 2000), co-edited with Olha Luchuk, includes over 100 of his own poetry translations alongside biographical sketches of 100 authors. His translation of Perverzion by the preeminent contemporary Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych (Northwestern University Press, 2005) received an Award in Translation from the American Association in Ukrainian Studies. His translation (with Svitlana Bednazh) of Larysa Denysenko’s novel The Sarabande of Sara’s Band (Glagoslav Publishers) was chosen as May 2013 Editor’s Pick by World Literature Today. He compiled, co-translated and edited Herstories: An Anthology of Ukrainian Women’s Prose, which was published by Glagoslav Publishers in 2014. And with Slava Yastremski he has published two books of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetry in translation: After Russia (Ardis Publishers, 1992) and The Essential Poetry (Glagoslav Publishers, 2015).
Endorsements and Review Quotes
“Whether Naydan took the gynocritical approach in promoting specifically women writers, or just wished to promote new Ukrainian literary works, his anthology for English-‐‑speaking readers achieves both objectives quite successfully.” Larissa M. L. Zaleska Onyshkevych, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies
“More than just showing that there’s a whole wealth of female fiction writers beyond the poets of the Soviet period, this anthology also shows their adeptness at presenting multiple voices: women and men, young and old, urban and rural. In other words, female writers in Ukraine are not just interesting because they shed light on that mysterious ‘female psychological perspective’ but because they are talented artists in their own right – so talented, in fact, that they escape simple taxonomy.” Ali Kinsella, World Literature Today
“This biggish book is a welcome addition to the still smallish corpus of Ukrainian literature in English translation. Edited by the prolific literary translator into English from Ukrainian and Russian, Michael M. Naydan, the collection comprises 40 texts by 18 women authors …” Marko Pavlyshyn, Canadian Slavonic Papers: Revue Canadienne des Slavistes
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