Oksana Zabuzhko

Ukrainian novelist, poet, essayist, and public intellectual. Her works has been translated into multiple languages. As a trained philosopher and cultural critic, Zabuzhko publishes essays and non-fiction works. Zabuzhko also turns to the Ukrainian history. Her most recent novel, The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (2009), deals with three different epochs (World War II, 1970s, and early 2000s), and, in particular, the topic of Ukrainian Insurgent Army, active in Ukraine in the 1940s and 1950s, and either demonized or silenced by the Soviet historiography.

Oksana Zabuzhko’s most famous non-fiction book is Notre Dame d’Ukraine. It focuses on the Ukrainian writer of the fin-de-siècle era, Lesya Ukrayinka (1871-1913), but is also a study of the Ukrainian intelligentsia of that time and their cultural values. More specifically, in this groundbreaking volume Zabuzhko shows Ukraine’s European legacy in regard to the tradition of chivalry and the ways in which it shaped the Ukrainian literature and mentality.

Her book Let My People Go won the Korrespondent magazine Best Ukrainian documentary book award in June 2006, The Museum of Abandoned Secrets — Best Ukrainian Book — 2010.