A celebration of Ukrainian literature at the University of Chichester for the launch of O Venice!

Borys Fynkelshteyn will present his twenty-ninth work of literature, a suite of thoughtful and entertaining tales responding to classic European literature including poetry, fairy tale, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Giovanni Boccaccio’s plague epic The Decameron. Dr Lorenza Gianfrancesco, Senior Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Chichester, has called the book ‘an introspective novella concerning nostalgia, disillusionment and hope …[presenting] a journey that bridges time, space and emotions.’

Borys will be in conversation with the book’s editor, Dr Naomi Foyle, Reader in Critical Imaginative Writing at the University of Chichester, Deputy Director of Waterloo Press, and winner of the 2014 Hryhorii Skovoroda Award for her poetry and essays about Ukraine. Also present to discuss O Venice! and its many literary allusions will be Duncan Salkeld, former Professor of Shakespeare studies at the University of Chichester; and, electricity in Kyiv permitting, Dmytro Drozdovskyi, editor-in-chief of Vsesvit, Ukraine’s leading literature journal, who will attend remotely and speak about the urgent need to promote Ukrainian literature at a time of existential threat. Both Borys and Dmytro are keen to take questions from the floor.

The launch of O Venice! is the second Ukrainian literature event at the University of Chichester, following Writing, War, Connection in April 2023, featuring the university’s digital writer in residence Volodymyr Rafeienko, Guardian foreign correspondent and author Luke Harding, and poet Sasha Dugdale, chaired by Suzy Joinson, Reader in Creative Writing.

The launch will take place from 6.30-8pm on 19 October, in Room E124, Bishop Otter Campus. Signage will be up on the night and a certified interpreter will assist the conversations. Soft drinks and nibbles will be available. A book table will be present and Borys Fynkelshteyn will sign copies of O Venice! The event is free, but please register in advance on Eventbrite.

This event will celebrate the full, eclectic slate of Ukrainian titles from Waterloo Press: O Venice! (2023), a co-translation by Michael Pursglove and Alan Morrison; the novel The Children of Grad (2022) by Maria Miniailo, translated by Michael Pursglove and Natalia Pniushkova, published just before the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces; and the English PEN Award winning poetry collection A Flight Over the Black Sea (2014) by Ihor Pavlyuk, translated by Steven Komarnyckyj and published just before the annexation of Crimea.

Maria Miniailo is the award-winning author of five works of fiction. The story of four orphans who run away to find a better world, for its inexorable movement from childhood innocence to harsh reality The Children of Grad is reminiscent of The Lord of the Flies. Ihor Pavluyk is an award-winning poet and writer based in Lviv. For its ‘fierce humanity’ and intense concern with language and landscape, Steve Komarnyckyj has compared A Flight Over the Black Sea to the work of Seamus Heaney.