English world rights (Yale UP), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Pax), Poland (Czarne), Hungary (Magvető), Latvia (Janis Roze), Belorussia (Januskevic), Georgia (Intelekti)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Schall & Wahn)
The setting of Serhiy Zhadan’s latest book is the Eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, here and now, a modern Babylon: a city in Mesopotamia, set at the riverbank of diverse languages and cultures. In the West, there is the river Dnepr, in the East the Donez, a sidearm of the river Don – all of the rivers that could represent the Ukraine and Russia. Zhadan’s Kharkiv is a place that changes its shape in each of the short stories: a Russian, a Ukrainian, and a Tartarian version of this multilingual and multicultural city exist.
In the prologue the author cites from a folktale of the ancient Sumerians, who settled at two rivers, and spoke one language that lent itself to singing as well as to cursing; the women gave birth to brave children and thus to serious problems. Zhadan’s Kharkiv is a place that changes its shape in each of the short stories: a Russian, a Ukrainian, and a Tartarian version of this multilingual and multicultural city exist.
The book consists of two parts, the first of which comprises nine »Stories and Biographies«, all telling the story of a person’s search for the meaning of their life, all carrying that person’s name as their title. The first part is followed by »Explanations and Generalisations«, consisting of thirty long poems, a lyrical-musical postlude in which the themes of the stories about Matthew and Luke, Bob and Marat, Mario and Romeo, Jurik and Foma and the others re-emerge. The protagonists of these stories seem to communicate across the borders of the individual stories that take the reader from the Ukraine to the USA. Somehow they all know each other, met in passing before, share dreams and fantasies.
In recent months, since the revolution in the Ukraine and the disintegration, of eastern Ukraine, Serhiy Zhadan – himself an activist of the Euromaidan in Kharkiv - has described the dramatic changes in the Donbass, his native region. That’s why his attempt at continuing the geo- and mythopoetic survey of the Ukrainian East after Voroshilovgrad, now in the futuristic metropolis of Kharkiv, is all the more impressive. Serhiy Zhadan, currently the most famous Ukrainian author, belongs in the first league of European literature.
Serhiy Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in 1974 and studied German at Kharkiv University. He has been one of the most influential figures in the Kharkiv scene since the early 1990s. He made his literary debut at 17 and has published numerous volumes of poetry and prose. He was awarded the Jan Michalski Prize and the Brücke Berlin Prize (together with translators Juri Durkot und Sabine Stöhr) for Ворошиловград. BBC Ukraine named Ворошиловград the Book of the Decade. In 2022, Zhadan was named Man of the Year by Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) and awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his »outstanding artistic work and his humanitarian stance with which he turns to the people suffering...
Serhiy Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in 1974 and studied German at Kharkiv University. He has been one of the...
This volume contains a selection of texts that Serhiy Zhadan has been publishing on Facebook since the start of the war on February 24, 2022.
He doesn’t have time to keep a diary....
English world rights (Yale UP), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak)
Sweden (Fri Tanke), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (Wrocławski Dom Literatury), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor), Bulgaria (Paradox)
A young teacher plans on bringing his 13-year-old nephew home from the boarding school at the other end of town. The school, in which his working sister has »parked« her son, has come...
English world rights (Yale UP), English Audiobook (Blackstone), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Catalan rights (Quaderns Crema), Portuguese rights (Elsinore), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Netherlands (de Geus), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Pax), Finland (Sammakko), Japan (Bulrush), Poland (Czarne), Czech Republic (Argo), Czech Audiobook (OneHotBook), Slovak Republic (Absynt), Hungary (Magvetö), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Estonia (Hea Lugu), Latvia (Janis Roze), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Croatia (Edicije Božičević), Slovenia (Beletrina), Greece (Dioptra), North Macedonia (Matica), Belarus (Januškevič), Georgia (Intelekti), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Lindhardt & Ringhof / Saga Egmont)»It’s tough to see history being made.« Since the summer of 2014, Serhiy Zhadan notes down his experiences on his journeys into the eastern Ukrainian war zone. They are poetic...
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (selection; PIW), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)
English world rights (Deep Vellum), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Russia (Astrel), Portuguese rights (Elsinore), Arabic world rights (Here&There), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Netherlands (De Geus), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Poland (Czarne), Poland Graphic Novel (Artur Wabik), Czech Republic (Argo), Bulgaria (Paradox), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Latvia (Janis Roze), Croatia (Edicije Božičević), Slovenia (Beletrina), Belarus (Logvinau), Georgia (Intelekti)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Hungary (Europa)Russia (Amphora), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak), Bulgaria (Paradox)
France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Sweden (Bonniers), Norway (Pax), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Belarus (Skaryna Press)
English world rights (Glagoslav), Russia (Amphora), Italy (Castelvecchi), Sweden (2244/Bonniers), Poland (Czarne), Czech Republic (Éditions Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Paradox), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Estonia (Loomingu Raamatukogu), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Greece (Dioptra)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Schall & Wahn)
With the success of Democratic Youth Anthem, Serhiy Zhadan has established himself as the most original counter-voice to the poetic observations of Juri Andruchowytsch. In Big...
Bulgaria (Paradox)
Only in an environment in which anachronistic industrial plants sit in the landscape like dinosaurs, rotting away as the last witnesses of the grandiose Soviet experiment, could the...
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Russia (Agorisk), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)