Ostap Slyvynsky

Ostap Slyvynsky has studied at the Institute of Slavic Language and Literature at the University of Lviv, where he obtained his PhD in with a thesis on the silence in contemporary Bulgarian prose.

Slyvynsky is the author of a large number of essays and media articles and has published five collections of poetry, so far. He has been awarded, among other prizes, the German Hubert Burda Award for young poets from Eastern Europe (2009).

He translates from Bulgarian, Polish, Macedonian, English and Belarusian into Ukrainian. Works he has translated include “Natural Novel” and “Other Stories” by Georgi Gospodinov, stories by Alek Popov and poems by Ivan Radoev, Nikolay Kanchev and Marin Bodakov. His translations from Polish had earned him the Polish Embassy’s translation prize (2007) and the Medal for Merit to Polish Culture (2014).

Slyvynsky coordinated the International Literary Festival at the Publishers Forum in Lviv in 2006–2007. In 2016, he helped organize a series of readings titled “Literature Against Aggression” during the Forum. In 2015, he collaborated with composer Bohdan Sehin on a media performance, “Preparation,” dedicated to the civilian victims of war in the East of Ukraine. His latest work, Wörter im Krieg [Words in War], was published in 2023 by Edition.fotoTAPETA in Berlin, Germany.

Slyvynsky teaches Polish literature and literary theory at Ivan Franko National University. He is the Vice President of Ukrainian PEN and lives in Lviv.