From 3 to 7 October, a literary tour by Artem Chekh and Yaryna Chornohuz took place in the Netherlands, organised by the international literary corporation Meridian Czernowitz together with the Ukrainians in the Netherlands Foundation.
Artem Chekh presented the novel “We Didn’t Expect You”, while Yaryna Chornohuz presented the poetry collection “No One’s Saffron” in the cities of Maastricht, Haarlem, The Hague, Zaandam and Zwolle. Meridian Czernowitz reports this on its Facebook page.
Artem Chekh is a writer and serviceman, the author of more than fifteen books, a recipient of literary awards, and the author of the novel “Who Are You?”, which was adapted into the film “Me and Felix”.
According to the description, “We Didn’t Expect You” is a novel about loneliness, memory and art. It is a story about unhappy people desperately searching for love, and about the invisible threads that bind them to the twilight of the past. It is also about an attempt to return from oblivion: the artist Ivan Trush miraculously survives a bloody slaughter in eastern Ukraine, where his entire unit is killed. However, when he comes to in hospital, he learns from the news that he, too, is believed to have died, and decides not to correct the record, but to go along with the game circumstances have offered him.
Yaryna Chornohuz is a poet, a combat medic and a UAV operator, and a recipient of the Shevchenko Prize. “No One’s Saffron” is a poetry collection published in 2025, containing the author’s poetic testimony about her experience of serving in the Armed Forces and life during the war.
The aim of the tour was to deepen ties with the Ukrainian community in the Netherlands.