Antenna
Poems
Original Ukrainian titles: Aнтена (2018) and Список кораблів (2020) published by Meridian Czernowitz
Rights sold to:
Sweden (Fri Tanke), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (Wrocławski Dom Literatury), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor), Bulgaria (Paradox)
Antenna / Antenne
Poems
Original Ukrainian titles: Aнтена (2018) and Список кораблів (2020) published by Meridian Czernowitz
Drahomán Prize 2020
»Serhiy Zhadan’s poetry allows the pain and bravery of those who can only speak through his poems to be heard. Today, in the context of war, his words resonate deeply, offering a powerful and moving journey through the human experience.« Yevgenia Belorusets
»Zhadan is a poet, rock star, and activist whose verse is rooted his native Eastern Ukraine. He draws metaphors from daily life that in turn become the subjects of his poems … urgent messages about life, war, and love.« Amelia Glaser
»The worth of a poem increases in winter / Especially in a hard winter. / Especially in a quiet language. / Especially in unpredictable times.«
What can literature do, what should it do, when there is war? What language do the poets resort to? Are their instruments suited to express »what causes fear«? Since the battles in Eastern Ukraine began six years ago, Serhiy Zhadan has encouraged the citizens in countless appearances on bravery and resilience and dedicated himself to social projects.
He, the most popular Ukrainian writer, has shunned no existential challenge to develop a strong lyrical voice that captures...
He, the most popular Ukrainian writer, has shunned no existential challenge to develop a strong lyrical voice that captures...
Read more
What can literature do, what should it do, when there is war? What language do the poets resort to? Are their instruments suited to express »what causes fear«? Since the battles in Eastern Ukraine began six years ago, Serhiy Zhadan has encouraged the citizens in countless appearances on bravery and resilience and dedicated himself to social projects.
He, the most popular Ukrainian writer, has shunned no existential challenge to develop a strong lyrical voice that captures the supposedly ineffable in mysteriously beautiful images in long, song-like poems. In his new book he also commemorates his deceased father, he finds a voice to talk about the inevitability of death and the pain of love, and about the grief »that can also be bright«, because it points us towards a hidden meaning.
He, the most popular Ukrainian writer, has shunned no existential challenge to develop a strong lyrical voice that captures the supposedly ineffable in mysteriously beautiful images in long, song-like poems. In his new book he also commemorates his deceased father, he finds a voice to talk about the inevitability of death and the pain of love, and about the grief »that can also be bright«, because it points us towards a hidden meaning.
»These words blaze across the page like missiles aiming at the fourth dimension: What if someone spoke a sentence / That could stir the sonic field of death? In the eternal battle between Orpheus and Morpheus, a great poet’s verbal imagination is always his sharpest weapon, his impenetrable shield. In his face-off with memory and time, Zhadan is certain to prevail.« Askold Melnyczuk
»A classic of modern Ukrainian poetry.« Gary Shteyngart
»When Zhadan says ›speak now,‹ he is getting at all the ways the speaking matters: from the trenches in Ukraine that he’s known to the memories of Ukrainians that he carries. The urging to speak vibrates through these pages, as if the saying it is always an homage to those who have tasked the poet to sing, while alongside him they go about the business of loving or working or cajoling light out of suffering so that we all might ›have enough stories to brave through winter.‹« Reginald Dwayne Betts
»This is the sound of War. Zhadan, reporting from the frontlines in Kharkiv, where words are bullets and voices are heard from the dead. … Poetry from bunkers, bomb shelters and graves – poetry from the depths.« Bob Holman
»[Zhadan] creates a damaged, disturbing reality that no God will come to rescue with downright magical intensity and chanting appeals and questions. Meanwhile, Zhadan […] trusts that the poetic word can bring about a little peace.« Ilma Rakusa, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»A classic of modern Ukrainian poetry.« Gary Shteyngart
»When Zhadan says ›speak now,‹ he is getting at all the ways the speaking matters: from the trenches in Ukraine that he’s known to the memories of Ukrainians that he carries. The urging to speak vibrates through these pages, as if the saying it is always an homage to those who have tasked the poet to sing, while alongside him they go about the business of loving or working or cajoling light out of suffering so that we all might ›have enough stories to brave through winter.‹« Reginald Dwayne Betts
»This is the sound of War. Zhadan, reporting from the frontlines in Kharkiv, where words are bullets and voices are heard from the dead. … Poetry from bunkers, bomb shelters and graves – poetry from the depths.« Bob Holman
»[Zhadan] creates a damaged, disturbing reality that no God will come to rescue with downright magical intensity and chanting appeals and questions. Meanwhile, Zhadan […] trusts that the poetic word can bring about a little peace.« Ilma Rakusa, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Serhij Zhadan is a brilliant poet.« Volker Weidermann, Spiegel
»It is a melancholic landscape of life that Zhadan praises so tenderly and empathetically. Readers are taken on a mystical journey, following the words and their meanings, along verses that lose themselves, trail off, and catapulted over individual word turbulences to the next level – or into emptiness, into the nothingness of their own echo.« Ingo Petz, neues deutschland
»Serhij Zhadan has sent us a deeply moving message. Now it is on us to answer him.« Wolfgang Schlott, Fixpoetry
»These words blaze across the page like missiles aiming at the fourth dimension: What if someone spoke a sentence / That could stir the sonic field of death? In the eternal battle between Orpheus and Morpheus, a great poet’s verbal imagination is always his sharpest weapon, his impenetrable shield. In his face-off with memory and time, Zhadan is certain to prevail.« Askold Melnyczuk
»A classic of modern Ukrainian poetry.« Gary Shteyngart...
»A classic of modern Ukrainian poetry.« Gary Shteyngart...
Read more
2020, 144 pages
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Serhij Zhadan
Author
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...
Serhij Zhadan
Author
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...
© Ekko von Schwichow
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2022
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2022
Sky Above Kharkiv
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....
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Yale UP), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak)
Year of Publication: 2017
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2017
The Orphanage
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...
Rights sold to:
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)
Year of Publication: 2016
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2016
Why I Am Not Online
»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...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (selection; PIW), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)
Year of Publication: 2014
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2014
Mesopotamia
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...
Rights sold to:
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)
Year of Publication: 2010
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2010
Voroshilovgrad
In expressive prose, Zhadan delivers a road novel from the edge of Europe that dares to dream the dream of freedom in a completely new way: as the search for home in a world without...
Rights sold to:
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)
Year of Publication: 2006
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2006
Democratic Youth Anthem
San Sanytsch, a wrestler with a highschool diploma, joins the »Boxers for Justice and Social Adaptation« who form a brigade of security guards controlling the markets near the tractor...
Rights sold to:
Russia (Amphora), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak), Bulgaria (Paradox)
Year of Publication: 2005
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2005
Anarchy in the UKR
»Forget politics, don't read the papers, don't go online, deny them your voice« – thus begins the »Leftist March«, a chapter of Serhiy Zhadan's...
Rights sold to:
France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Sweden (Bonniers), Norway (Pax), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Belarus (Skaryna Press)
Year of Publication: 2004
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2004
Depeche Mode
»A poet and novelist whose work has been variously compared to Rimbaud, Charles Bukowski and Irvine Welsh, Serhiy Zhadan’s first novel Depeche Mode depicts Ukrainian youth during...
Rights sold to:
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)
Year of Publication: 2003
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2003
Big Mac
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...
Rights sold to:
Bulgaria (Paradox)
Year of Publication: 2003
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2003
The History of Culture at the Beginning of the Century
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...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Russia (Agorisk), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)
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News
Serhiy Zhadan Awarded the 2023 Tucholsky Prize by PEN Sweden
Ukrainian poet and author Serhiy Zhadan awarded for his workJust published
Just published: Suhrkamp Authors Around the World – March 2023, issue 1
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