Writers for Democratic Action and Democracy Book Club presents…

Luydmyla Khersonsky, Boris Khersonsky, Katie Farris, and Ilya Kaminsky

Helping Ukrainian Books and Booksellers (HUBB)

Watching the devastation in Ukraine is heartbreaking. The bookselling and publishing community there has been devastated. I, along with a group of concerned literary friends, Askold Melnyczuk, Carolyn Forche, Christopher Merrill and Jane Unrue, founded Helping Ukrainian Books and Booksellers (HUBB) to directly support booksellers, editors, printers, warehouse workers, libraries and librarians, and others involved inthe publishing industry so that literary culture in Ukraine survives.  You can check out our website - helpukrainianbooks.org - for more information. Together we can make a difference. -Mitchell Kaplan

English translations of Luydmyla Khersonsky's poetry have appeared in The New York Times, Poetry International, The Nation, Ploughshares, Tikkun, and elsewhere. Born in Moldova, she's lived in Odesa, Ukraine for many years. She is the author of several collections of poetry and her work has been translated into numerous languages. She is also a translator of many poets, including Seamus Heaney.

Boris Khersonsky's poetry has been published in numerous journals including The Atlantic and Poetry International, and profiled in The New York Times. A dissident in the city of Odesa during Soviet times, he is known as one of the most prolific and beloved poets in contemporary Ukraine. His writings has been published in many languages, including Italian, French, Hebrew, and English.

Katie Farris is the author of Standing in the Forrest of Being Alive (Alice James Books) and co-translator of many books, including Dignity Not Detention: Anthology of Poems from Detainees and Allies (Calypso Editions) and A Country Where Everyone's Name is Fear: Poems of Boris and Luydmyla Khersonsky (Lost Horse Press). She teaches at Princeton.

Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo) and co-editor and co-translator of various books including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins) and A Country Where Everyone's Name is Fear: Poems of Boris and Luydmyla Khersonsky (Lost Horse Press). He teaches at Princeton.

Carolyn Forché is an American poet, translator, and memoirist. Her books of poetry are Blue Hour, The Angel of History, The Country Between Us, and Gathering the Tribes. Her memoir, What You Have Heard Is True, was published by Penguin Press in 2019. In 2013, Forché received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship given for distinguished poetic achievement. In 2017, she became one of the first two poets to receive the Windham-Campbell Prize. She is a University Professor at Georgetown University. She lives in Maryland with her husband, photographer Harry Mattison.

WRITERS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION presents The Democracy Book Club: Helping Ukrainian Books and Booksellers (HUBB)