Ukraine Writes Back: Between Lines and Lives

“Ukraine Writes Back: Writers, Poets and the War” is a series of four webinars co-hosted by the Research Initiative on Post-Soviet Space (RIPSS) at The University of Melbourne and the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand (USAANZ).

This second webinar in the series “Ukraine Writes Back: Between Lines and Lives” brings together in conversation the poets Katia Mikhalitsyna and Iryna Starovoyt, and Alessandro Achilli.

Thursday 29 May 2025, 5:00pm AEST Melbourne
Thursday 29 May 2025, 10:00am Kyiv
Thursday 29 May 2025, 9:00am Warsaw/Berlin
Thursday 29 May 2025, 8:00am London

Kateryna Mikhalitsyna is a Ukrainian writer, translator, cultural manager, and a member of PEN Ukraine and the New York Literary Festival NGO established by Victoria Amelina. She is an award-winning author of nearly 20 books for children and several collections of poetry. Kateryna’s poems have been translated into Polish, German, English, Lithuanian and other languages. Among the writers she has translated are J. R. R. Tolkien, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Marsh, Judith Kerr, Marius Burokas and others. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kateryna has focused on readings and workshops with children affected by the Russian aggression, supporting animal shelters and helping Ukrainian soldiers. She is the coordinator of a helping initiative started by the Lithuanian Writers’ Union in October 2022. Kateryna lives in Lviv with her family and three rescued dogs.

Iryna Starovoyt is a poet, essayist and humanist, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University, and recurrent visiting fellow at St. John’s College, Oxford. A board member of PEN Ukraine, she has authored three volumes of poetry. Her poetry has been anthologized, translated into several languages, set to music, embroidered on canvas in Lithuania and fired in ceramics in the USA. She is on the board of the annual Lviv Book Forum, Culture Congress, the Light of Justice Award, Order for Intellectual Courage, The Lysiak-Rudnytsky Ukrainian Studies Programme, and served as the Head of the Jury for the transnational literary prize UNESCO’s City of Literature based in Lviv (2019-2024).

Alessandro Achilli is an Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Between 2017 and 2020 he was a Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies at Monash University. His main area of research is modern and contemporary Ukrainian literature, with particular attention to poetry. His publications include a monograph on Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus (2018) and many scholarly articles and chapters on Ukrainian and Belarusian culture, comparative literature, and contemporary poetry. He is also active as a literary translator.

Registration via the link: https://unimelb.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2DrLYcl3RsGnm_pGNygrgQ#/registration