Love Life: Literary Evening with Oksana Lutsyshyna

A book talk by Oksana Lutsyshyna, writer, poet, and literary scholar; Associate Professor at University of Texas, Austin.

In conversation with Oleh Kotsyuba, Director of Print and Digital Publications, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.

IN-PERSON 

About the Book

Love Life, the second novel by the award-winning Ukrainian writer and poet Oksana Lutsyshyna, follows Yora, an immigrant to the United States from Ukraine. A delicate soul who is finely attuned to the nuances of human relations, Yora becomes enmeshed with Sebastian, a seductive acquaintance who suggests that they share a deep bond. But the relationship ends, sending her into a period of despair and grief. Full of mystic allusions, Love Life is a fascinating story of self-discovery amidst the complexities of adapting to a new life. [Source]. Learn more and buy the book: HURI BOOKS.

About the Author

Oksana Lutsyshyna is a Ukrainian novelist and poet, as well as assistant professor of Ukrainian studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Lutsyshyna's most recent novel Ivan and Phoebe (2019) won two of the most prestigious literary awards in Ukraine, respectively: the Lviv City of Literature UNESCO Prize (2020) and the Taras Shevchenko National Prize in Literature (2021). The novel was released in English translation by Nina Murray in 2023 by Deep Vellum Publishing. Her poetry collection, Persephone Blues, in the English translation, was released in 2019 by Arrowsmith Press.

Her research interests revolve around the issue of metropolitan modernity and Central and Eastern European identity in literature. Her doctoral dissertation is a study of the prose of Bruno Schulz (Poland) in the light of Walter Benjamin’s modernity theories. She is currently working on a book on the discourse of film in the prose of Bruno Schulz and Valerian Pidmohylny (Ukraine). Her second academic book-length project focuses on gendered colonialism and decolonization in the works of contemporary Ukrainian writers. 

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This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the Ukraine Study Group: Literature Series and HURI Books program.

Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Hanna Leliv, HURI Events Logistics Coordinator, at hleliv@fas.harvard.edu at least two weeks in advance of the session.

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