Translations of Ukrainian Literature in Europe: Books by Khvylovyi, Yohansen, and Grusha Are Being Published

New European and Brazilian editions showcase Ukrainian literature, from avant-garde classics to contemporary voices, with translations, debut novels, poetry collections, and archival materials reaching audiences.

New translations of literary works are appearing in Latvia, Italy, and Poland. ZN.ua reports this.

Across Europe, new translations of Ukrainian literature from different periods and genres are being published. In Latvia, an avant-garde novel by Maik Yohansen has been released; in Italy, the debut of Yaryna Grusha is being prepared; and in Poland, a volume of poetry by Mykola Khvylovyi has been published, Chytomo reports.

The Latvian publishing house Aminori has released a translation of Maik Yohansen’s novel The Journey of the Learned Doctor Leonardo and his Future Lover, the Beauteous Alceste, to the Switzerland of Slobozhanshchyna (Mācītā doktora Leonardo un viņa nākamās mīļākās, daiļās Alčestes, ceļojums uz Slobodu Šveici). The events of the work unfold in the late 1920s and tell the story of the travels of an Italian doctor and his companion through Slobidska Ukraine, among a cast of bizarre characters.

The translation from Ukrainian was done by Mara Polyakova, with an essay for the edition written by Yaryna Tsymbal. The illustrations were created by Halya Verheles, the design by Oleksii Murashko, and the editor was Eva Leshynska. The book is already available at the Aminori bookstore and on the website aminori.lv.

In Italy, on February 18, the publishing house Bompiani will release the debut novel by Ukrainian writer Yaryna Grusha, L’Album Blu (The Blue Album). It is a coming-of-age novel dedicated to several generations of a Ukrainian family whose lives were shaped by repression, the explosion of the fourth reactor at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the Maidans, the occupation of Crimea, and Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“On the pages of the novel, the protagonist searches for her home: on the border with Moldova among the vines of the House with Vineyards; among the rooms of the House that had more doors than walls in Kyiv Oblast; in the third Chornobyl zone, in the House of Sand; in a Kyiv dormitory — a House suspended in midair; in a Kyiv apartment — a House with a dove on the ceiling; and in emigration, where none of these places can truly be called Home,” Grusha wrote.

In Poland, the first volume of the four-volume edition Utwory wybrane. Poezje i poematy by Mykola Khvylovyi has been published. The book includes the collections Youth and Symphonies Before Dawn, the poems Into the Electric Age, The Poem of My Sister, and others, as well as early programmatic texts.

The compilation, scholarly editing, and revision were carried out by Iwona Boruszkowska. The publication became the first systematic presentation of Khvylovyi’s poetic legacy in the Polish language.

Last month in Brazil, a Portuguese-language translation of the collection Poems from the Firing Slit (Poemas da Seteira) by the late Ukrainian poet and soldier Maksym “Dali” Kryvtsov was published. The edition includes not only the texts, but also the author’s photographs, manuscripts, and QR codes with recordings of the poet’s voice.