During the Vienna Book Fair (BuchWien), taking place on 25–29 November, the Update Ukraine programme dedicated to Ukrainian culture is scheduled.
“This is the first Ukrainian programme of this scale and visibility in the history of the BuchWien fair, and I am very grateful to the organisers for this opportunity,” writer Tania Maliarchuk, this year’s programme curator, said on her Facebook page.
“In recent years, the war has seeped into every nook and cranny of Ukrainian life, into every family, every city, every book,” Maliarchuk explains her concept. “To talk today about Ukrainian literature, art or philosophy while sidestepping the war would mean ignoring reality. At the same time, I am interested not only in how Ukrainian culture has changed over the years of war, but above all in how it responds to the challenges of these dark times. How it continues to create, to think, to engage in dialogue with societies that do not have similar experience, to ask uncomfortable questions and to imagine the future.”
Among the participants in the programme’s discussions are Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human rights defender and head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning (2022) NGO the Centre for Civil Liberties; Katya Petrovska, writer; Serhii Zhadan, writer, poet and serviceman in the Khartiia Brigade; Andrii Kurkov, writer; Yaroslav Hrytsak, historian; Volodymyr Yermolenko, philosopher and president of Ukrainian PEN, and others.
A total of 11 events are planned as part of the programme. The programme can be viewed on the fair’s website.
Tania Maliarchuk is a writer and a member of Ukrainian PEN; she has lived in Vienna since 2011.