The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology(Ukrainian Studies)

The publication of The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology commemorates the tenth year of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series. Co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Series has recurrently organized readings in the US for Ukraine’s leading writers since 2008. The anthology presents translations of literary works by Series guests that imaginatively engage pivotal issues in today’s Ukraine and express its tribulations and jubilations. Featuring poetry, fiction, and essays by fifteen Ukrainian writers, the anthology offers English-language readers a wide array of the most beguiling literature written in Ukraine in the past fifty years.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments The Kennan Institute/Harriman Institute Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Introduction A Note On Transliteration ANDREY KURKOV From Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv HRYTSKO CHUBAI The Woman and ever so slowly looms . . . The Corridor with Eye-Sized Doors When your lips are but a half a breath away . . . From Maria Light and Confession OLEH LYSHEHA Song 55 MARJANA SAVKA Books We’ve Never Read From A Short History of Dance Easter Jazz For Yann Tiersen Boston, April 2007 Baghdad Night In This City Who, Marlene, Who? Some woman . . . Organs of Sense My beloved sun . . . VIKTOR NEBORAK From Genesis of the Flying Head Monologue from a Canine Pretext A Drum-Tympanum (a sonnet uttered by the Flying Head) She (rap performance by the Kids of the Queenie) Part 3 An Itty Bitty Ditty ‘bout Mr. Bazio (sung by Viktor Morozov) Fish Supper Green sounds echo . . . The Writer The Poet ANDRIY BONDAR Genes Slavic Gods The Men of My Country Just Don’t Push Me Away Fantasy Robbie Williams St. Nick No. 628 The Roman Alphabet Jogging YURI ANDRUKHOVYCH The Star Absinthe: Notes on a Bitter Anniversary TARAS PROKHASKO 1 Selections from FM Galicia 22.11 24.11 30.11 04.12 07.12 09.12 15.12 16.12 23.12 15.01 24.01 25.01 27.01 10.02 SERHIY ZHADAN Chinese Cooking Hotel Business Children’s Train The Inner Color of Eyes AlcoholContraband Paprika . . . not to wake her up . . . The Lord Sympathizes with Outsiders The Smallest Girl in Chinatown Owner of the Best Gay Bar The Percentage of Suicides among Clowns IVAN MALKOVYCH Stand up and look . . . bird’s elegy happiness . . . futile people The Village Teacher’s Lesson Nothing is right here, you see: . . . An Evening with Great-Grandma The black parachute of anxiety grows . . . There is much—I know—sadness . . . The Man The Music That Walked Away At Home I gaze at my mountains . . . Tonight . . . Circle an evening (goose) pastoral A Message for T. VASYL GABOR The High Water A Story About One Dollar Five Short Stories for Natalie—The Fifth Story—The Last One—The Lover YURI VYNNYCHUK The Flowerbed in the Kilim Pea Soup From Spring Games in Summer Gardens Prologue The Pilgrim’s Dance, Part One Malva Landa, Part One Pears à la Crêpe OLEKSANDR BOICHENKO Out of Great Love The Lunch of a Man of Letters In a State of Siege SOPHIA ANDRUKHOVYCH An Out-of-tune-Piano, an Accordion LYUBA YAKIMCHUK Apricots of the Donbas The Face of Coal The Slag Piles of Breasts Apricots in Hard Hats My Grandmother’s Fairy Tale The Book of Angels the eye of the slag heap decomposition eyebrows I have a crisis for you false friends and beloved such people are called naked marsala About The Editor

About the Author :
Since 2007 Mark Andryczyk has been teaching Ukrainian literature at Columbia University and administering the Ukrainian Studies Program at its Harriman Institute. He is author of the monograph "The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction" (University of Toronto Press, 2012) - Ukrainian edition (Piramida, 2014) - and a translator of Ukrainian literature into English.

Review :
“…this masterfully translated, lucid, and engaging selection showcases the extraordinary power, vitality, and diversity of writing in contemporary Ukraine.” – Maryna Romanets, University of Northern British Columbia “It’s a great public service to enlarge our acquaintance with this indispensable work, an act of moral generosity. But what the reader will be most grateful for is the sheer pleasure of it.” – Lloyd Schwartz, poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning critic "This book stands as a notable contribution to appreciating major currents in Ukrainian literature of the last generation—an appreciation that, for most of us, is notably overdue." - World Literature Today Featured in the TLS (June 22 2018) "Mark Andryczyk describes the longing of many writers to liberate themselves..." "Rather the singing the praise of national heroes, [Bondar] records the humour and humiliations of everyday life." "The kind of poetry included in these collections is the antithesis of propaganda; these poetic dialogues are a valuable reminder that there is nothing immutable about Russian-Ukrainian enmity."