The Dublin program will bring veteran authors, emerging Ukrainian writers, and Irish colleagues together to turn wartime experience into shared literary work.

Three Ukrainian writer-soldiers and veterans of the Russo-Ukrainian War – Dmytro Krapyvenko, Yevhen Shybalov, and Alina Sarnatska – will take part in the Ukrainian-Irish literary project “Bridging the Distance: Ukrainian and Irish Literary Voices.”

This is reported by the media outlet Chytomo.

The initiative is being jointly implemented by the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in Ireland, PEN Ukraine, and Irish PEN, with support from the “Culture Helps: Solidarity” programme.

Dublin to host a literary workshop

The project’s first event will be a three-day literary workshop scheduled to take place in Dublin on September 11–13. It will bring together emerging Ukrainian writers who currently live in Ireland.

Dmytro Krapyvenko, Yevhen Shybalov, Alina Sarnatska, and Irish writers will work with the young authors as mentors. Workshop participants will prepare a joint collection of original essays exploring the challenges and threats facing Europe and the world.

The publication is scheduled to appear next year in Ukrainian and English. Book presentations will be held in Ukraine and Ireland.

Public events featuring Ukrainian writers

As part of the literary workshop in Dublin, two public events featuring Ukrainian authors will be held.

On September 11, there will be a performance reading of the plays “Victoria’s Little Secrets” by Alina Sarnatska and “The Woman with a Refrigerator” by Marta Shyiko.

The following day, September 12, Yevhen Shybalov and Dmytro Krapyvenko will hold a discussion titled “A Soldier’s Reality: Through Humor and Irony.” The writers will talk about their own military experiences and present their books “The Game of Numbers” and “Everything in Three Letters.”

Both events will take place at Trinity College Dublin. They will be open to Ireland’s Ukrainian community and local readers.

Project support and a Ukrainian book selection

The “Culture Helps: Solidarity” programme is co-funded by the European Union. It is implemented by the European Cultural Foundation in the Netherlands, the Ukrainian organisation Insha Osvita, the German organisation MitOst, and the Ukrainian Women Veterans Movement.

A separate selection of Ukrainian-language books has also been presented at the library in Letterkenny, a town in County Donegal, Ireland.