HURI invites the Harvard community and the public to a Literary Evening with award-winning Ukrainian author Yuri Andrukhovych. The event takes place from 7 to 9pm on Thursday, March 24, 2016, in Room S-050, CGIS South Building, Harvard University, 1730 Cambridge Street.
Yuri Andrukhovych: Esteemed writer and intellectual
Not only has Yuri Andrukhovych been the recipient of numerous national and international awards, he’s among the most famous of today’s Ukrainian writers. Lauded for his literary talents and activities as a public intellectual, Andrukhovych’s accolades include: Herder Preis (Alfred Toepfer Stiftung, Hamburg, 2001), Erich-Maria Remarque Friedenspreis (Osnabrück, 2005), Leipziger Buchpreis zur Europäischen Verständigung (2006), Central-European Literary Award "Angelus" (Wroclaw, 2006), and Hannah-Arendt-Preis für politisches Denken (Bremen, 2014).
Andrukhovych’s writings and public statements both enter into the conversation about Ukraine’s transition and future – including the country’s relationship with Russia and the EU – and make a unique contribution to the field of literature.
Some of Andrukhovych’s works can be described as distinctly postmodernist, and his impressive corpus of poetry, essays, short stories, novels and translations provide imaginative meditations on events and questions in Ukraine. His works have had a profound impact on Ukrainian readers and have been translated and published in Poland, Germany, Canada, USA, Hungary, Finland, Russia, Serbia, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Lithuania.
Yuri Andrukhovych is one of the founders of the literary performance group “Bu-Ba-Bu” (Burlesque-Bluster-Buffoonery), which was particularly important to Ukraine’s literary culture starting in the 1980s. He’s also a member of Potyah 76 and Krytyka’s editorial boards.
A Literary Evening with Yuri Andrukhovych
On Thursday, HURI’s Literary Evening with Yuri Andrukhovych offers the community and the public a unique opportunity to hear the words in the author’s own voice. Prof. George G. Grabowicz will chair the event and Andrukhovych will read from his work in Ukrainian, with the English translation projected on a screen. There will also be plenty of time for questions and answers.
Copies of Andrukhovych’s latest book,Twelve Circles, will be available for purchase for $15.
Twelve Circles is a flamboyant meditation on the history of everything. Don’t expect the trains to run on time but (in their own time) they arrive and depart and in due time the story of Karl-Joseph Zumbrunnen unfolds before our eyes. Andrukhovych is the ultimate omniscient narrator and his mile-long sentences chart their own unbroken course, fearlessly, with no end in sight. It’s all in the details, the unspoken truths, the sidelong glances, and the marvelous translation by Vitaly Chernetsky brings it to life on the wide screen. - Lewis Warsh
HURI is very pleased to welcome Yuri Andrukhovych to Harvard, and the Literary Evening is sure to foster an interesting conversation about literature and Ukraine.