Books from Ukraine

Who was Rose Ausländer (born 1901 in Austro-Hungarian Czernowitz; died 1988 in Düsseldorf)? What makes her so special as a...

Who was Rose Ausländer (born 1901 in Austro-Hungarian Czernowitz; died 1988 in Düsseldorf)? What makes her so special as a personality and as an author?

For Rose Ausländer, writing is existentially important; "a word, a constellation of words" are "questions of life". This special book recounts the life of the prominent Jewish-German author as a graphic novel – with easily understandable texts and many illustrations.

A journey into the world of seeing – seeing what’s visible and seeing what’s not visible. A non-fiction picture book...

A journey into the world of seeing – seeing what’s visible and seeing what’s not visible. A non-fiction picture book about the art of seeing the world with ever new eyes! Along with hearing, seeing is the most important sense for  human beings. How does our sight system work? How is the human eye formed? With my eyes, I can distinguish light and dark, colours and shapes. I can see at first glance whether someone is sad or happy. Small things appear amazingly large when viewed through a microscope. And sometimes our eyes deceive us. Seeing means so much more than we perceive through our eyes.  

The war in eastern Ukraine is a war at the centre of Europe. This was finally made clear when a...

The war in eastern Ukraine is a war at the centre of Europe. This was finally made clear when a civilian airliner was shot down over the battle zone. But nothing was done that could have arrested the violence and the rapid disintegration of civilian life, and ultimately the demise of the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, home to millions of people. In just a few months, the events that followed the Maidan revolution in Kyiv, from the annexation of Crimea to the invasion of Novoazovsk by Russian troops, shook the foundations of the post-war European order. Territorial integrity, sovereignty, security and peace all seem to be on hold. Russia and the West are once again hostile to each other. How could it come to this? And what does it mean for future coexistence in Europe? Here, writers and publicists look for some answers. With contributions by Alice Bota, Andreas Kappeler, Kateryna Mishchenko, Herfried Münkler, Serhij Zhadan, and others.

A platform for six Ukrainian poets: the colourful, surreal verse of Emma Andijewska, who lives in exile in Germany; the...

A platform for six Ukrainian poets: the colourful, surreal verse of Emma Andijewska, who lives in exile in Germany; the gentle, subtle Natalka Bilozerkiwez; the potent natural-mysticism of Oleh Lysheha; the witty, rebellious Yurii Andrukhovych; Serhij Zhadan, who loves the poetic grotesque; and Andrij Bondar, poet of everyday life – the last two having grown up in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Inter-linear versions and an afterword by Stefaniya Ptashnyk and Petro Rychlo.

A heart-warming story about true friendship and the joy of accepting yourself as you are....

A heart-warming story about true friendship and the joy of accepting yourself as you are.

The little hedgehog is sad. The other animals are constantly being petted: the dogs, the cats, the hares and the horses. He's the only one that no one strokes. But one day he meets a clever field mouse who shows him that we're all lovable just as we are. And that sometimes it's a wonderful thing to be wild and free.

Andrej Kurkow, born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1961, has lived in Kiev, Ukraine, since childhood. He studied foreign languages, was a newspaper editor and a cameraman and wrote numerous screenplays. His books have been published in 38 languages.

Tania Goryushina, born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1978, is a Ukrainian artist based in Stockholm. She is a publisher, teacher, and illustrator who develops children's books. In 2009, she won a place at the Academy of Fine Art in Umea, Sweden.

"It's terrible to see how history is made." Since the summer of 2014, Serhij Zhadan has been recording his experiences...

"It's terrible to see how history is made." Since the summer of 2014, Serhij Zhadan has been recording his experiences of travels to the war zone in eastern Ukraine. Lyrical snapshots as abrupt revelations of an essence, short stories about people who suddenly find themselves on opposing sides, or no longer know where they belong and what is to become of them. In just a few stanzas he conveys something of the tragedy of millions of individuals. The significance of Brecht, whose poetry Zhadan has been translating since the Ukrainian revolution, is palpable in the laconic verses.

Yurii Andrukhovych, who for German readers represents a new, independent Ukraine, started out as a rebellious poet  in the 1980s....

Yurii Andrukhovych, who for German readers represents a new, independent Ukraine, started out as a rebellious poet  in the 1980s. The group he co-founded, BuBaBu (Burlesk-Balagan-Buffonada), was seen as a poetic awakening in the spirit of modernism. Even then it was an approach to poetry that, with its cheeky punchlines and deliberate taboo-breaking, set itself apart from state-protected Socialist Realism. His texts mix poetic playfulness with a cosmopolitan feel. They are narrative poems of a special kind, wishful and hard-boiled, thoughtful and spontaneous. Andrukhovych, known for his charming and cheeky humour as a storyteller, is also a witty and virtuosic poet.