Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦
@BlackerUilleam
Ukrainian/East European culture @UCLSSEES. Translator of 🇺🇦 literature. @BritishAcademy_ Fellow 2024-25.
'Imperial violence only inspires Ukrainians to find ever more powerful, inventive, and irreverent ways of becoming Ukrainians.' I wrote for @TheAtlantic on the ways in which Ukrainian literature has resisted Russian cultural imperialism. bit.ly/3tHGqwm
This will be a great night of music, stories and wine in a beautiful venue - and all for the crucial cause of helping the amazing Ukrainian Institute London continue to make Ukrainian voices heard in the UK and beyond. This Wednesday - still a few tickets left!
🍷 Raise a glass to Ukraine! Join us at From Soil to Soul for a special tasting of Ukrainian wines from Ukraine Wine Company UK. Every bottle tells a story of land, resilience and craft. 🗓️ 25 June, 18:30 | 📍 Bishopsgate Institute 🎟️ tickettailor.com/events/ukraini…
Where there are citizens, there will be a state. When I was invited to reflect on how hope sustains democracy, I turned to the history of Ukrainian protest. Here's a reminder: Ukrainians defend their democracy in times of peace, and in times of war. 1/2
My interview for The Ukrainians - on postcolonialism, western cultural biases, translation, Ukrainian-Scottish parallels and more - is now available in English. Thanks again to @BohdanaNeborak for the conversation. theukrainians.org/en/uilleam-bla…
The ICCEES World Congress kicks off with a plenary with Dame Melinda Simmons, Ambassador Designate of the United Kingdom to Poland. #iccees2025
Very much looking forward to being in conversation with @MelSimmonsFCDO today at #iccees2025, hosted at @UCLSSEES. We'll be talking Ukraine, Poland, the Russian threat, and more iccees2025.org/keynote-speake…
I’m really looking forward to speaking at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival @edbookfest. Together with @BlackerUilleam, I’ll be recording a new episode of the Ukraine Shelf podcast, with guests Philippe Sands and Oksana Maksymchuk. 1/2 edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/w…
Need to update your own Ukraine shelf? @BlackerUilleam and I have four episodes full of recommendations. Catch up on our podcast here: ucl.ac.uk/european-insti… A new episode is coming soon.
Why always war, indeed. Prokhasko's novel reflects on many things, from plants to animated films, but much of it deals with the familiar east-central European predicament of being caught in the geopolitical crosshairs. Read my translation in this collection of his prose!👇
«Why always war? This is what little Anna, daughter of Sebastian, asked when she began to understand the more complicated stories. Sebastian was horror struck—he realized that he really had spoken to the little one about nothing but war, that he had told her everything there is…
Change matters, even if it’s just a small win. Here are the Ukraine shelves at Librairie Mollat— France’s biggest indie bookshop—2025 vs 2020. No ru war criminals this time (a low bar, but still). Lovely to see ‘La mort d’un frère’ on display too. 1/2 @MollatLibr13585
We like posting photos of Artur, particularly as his poetry collection has just been reviewed by @worldlittoday. The review can be read here, worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/july/we-w… Signed copies of WE WERE HERE can be found online at jantarpublishing.com/product-page/w… #UkraineWillWin #Ukraine
The winner of the #EBRDLiteraturePrize2025 will be announced today at 18.00 London time. Join @MayaJaggi, @BlackerUilleam, @SelmaDabbagh @fergalkeane47, our Kazuhiko Koguchi, the finalist authors, translators and publishers and watch us live: youtube.com/watch?v=Bn8i-B…
Next week on Tuesday 6pm we're hosting the EBRD Literature Prize 2025 Awards Ceremony If you can't make it in person, we'll be streaming it live on YouTube! With @MayaJaggi, @fergalkeane47, @SelmaDabbagh, @BlackerUilleam, @tokarczuk_olga, youtube.com/watch?v=Bn8i-B…
So many examples of this, it's so offensive... @amazon
We work doggedly, fighting for our culture, and there is still no category for us on amazon? Why is a Ukrainian Family Story in russian historical biography section…
Ukrainian book publishing has been a target of russian attacks for centuries. In 2020 I worked in a former kgb archive in Kyiv, and came across a criminal case of a Kharkiv student, who was hiding Ukrainian printing fonts in his garden. Protect publishers from the empire.
The russian attack destroyed the warehouse of the "Ukrainian Priority" publishing house, burning thousands of books. In this video: its founder, Volodymyr Shovkoshytnyi -- also co-author of Ukraine's Constitution -- stands among the ashes of their books.
⏳ Just one week to go until our Summer Get-Together on 25 June at 6:30 PM at the Bishopsgate Institute! 🇺🇦 Join us for a joyful evening filled with Ukrainian food, wine, live jazz and inspiring conversation — a perfect celebration of culture and community.
My interview with @BohdanaNeborak for @the_ukrainians is now free to access. We discussed overcoming colonial complexes, writing in marginalised languages, imagining place through literature, translation, war poetry and more. theukrainians.org/uilleam-blacke…
