Andrukhovych, Yuri 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born March 13, 1960, in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. Education: Ukrainian Institute of Printing, journalism graduate; attended Maxim Gorky Literary Institute, Moscow, 1989-91.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

CAREER:

Poet, novelist, essayist, translator. Potyah 76, Internet magazine, founder, 2003. Military service: Served in Red Army.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Blahovist, 1993; the award of the Helen Shcherban-Lapika Foundation, 1996; Novel of the Year Prize, Suchasnist, 1997; Lesia and Petro Kovalev Award, 1998; Herder Prize, Alfred-Toepfer Foundation, 2001; Special Award, Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, City of Osnabrueck, 2005; Leipzig Book Fair Prize for European Understanding, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Bu-Ba-Bu: Tymchasovo Vykonuiuchi Obov'iazky, Kameniar (Lviv, Ukraine), 1995.

Rekreatsii: Romany, Vyd-vo (Kiev, Ukraine), 1997.

Perverziia: Roman, Vyd-vo (Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), 1997, translation by Michael H. Naydan published as Perverzion, Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL), 2005.

Ekzotychni Ptakhy I Roslyny: Z Dodatkom "Indiia": Kolektsiia Virshiv, Lileia-NV (Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), 1997.

Dezoriientatsiia Na Mistsevosti: Sproby, Lileia-NV (Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), 1999.

(With Andrzej Stasiuk) Moja Europa: Dwa Eseje O Europie Zwanej Srodkowa (title means "My Europe"), Czarne (Wolowiec, Ukraine), 2000, published as Moia Evropa; Dva Esei Pro Naidyvnishu Chastynu Svitu, Klasyka (Lviv, Ukraine), 2001.

Moskoviada, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie (Moscow, Russia), 2001, translation by Vitaly Chernetsky published as The Moscoviad, Spuyten Duyvil (New York, NY), 2007.

Dvanadtsiat Obruchiv: Roman (title means "Twelve Rings"), Krytyka (Kiev, Ukraine), 2003.

Nervy Lantsiuha: 25 Eseiv Pro Svobodu, Leksykon (Lviv, Ukraine), 2003.

Sny O Europie, Wydawnictwo Nemrod (Krakow, Poland), 2005.

Potiah 76: Tsentralnoievropeiskyi Chasopys: 2003-2004 Vybrane, Literaturna ahentsiia Piramida (Lviv, Ukraine), 2005.

Also author of poetry collections, including The Sky and Squares, 1985, Downtown, 1989, Exotic Birds and Plants, 1991, and Spurensuche im Juli, 1995. Author of story collection Nebo i ploshtshi, 1985, and screenplay for film Oxygen Starvation, 1991. Author of the book of essays Das letzte Territorium, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

"Yuri Andrukhovych is a novelist, essayist and a poet—one of the leading Ukrainian prose writers of today," wrote Anna Knoch on Culturebase.net. "He is a postmodernist author, who has radically renewed Ukrainian poetry." A cofounder of BuBaBu (BurlesqueBlusterBuffonery), a group of poets who took literature into political realms with their use of carnival-like performances in Ukraine, Andrukhovych has been outspoken in both literary and political circles, and is best known in the West for his novels translated into English, such as Perverzion and The Moscoviad.

Andrukhovych's 1997 novel Perverzion is a "postmodern version of Death in Venice," according to a writer for the Berlin International Literature Festival. The same contributor felt the novel displayed a "complex structure, an abundance of motifs, subplots and narrative elements, as well as a baroque love of playing with the language." The novel portrays the last week in the life of Ukrainian poet Stanislav Perfetsky, a guest at a Venetian seminar who apparently commits suicide. Writing in the Review of Contemporary Fiction, Michael Pinker felt the author "creates a startlingly carnivalesque narrative, replete with ‘learned’ notes, numerous twists, and arcane lore." Pinker further noted, "Andrukhovych's relentlessly in-your-face style keeps one alert throughout his fast-paced mystery-manque." Vitaly Chernetsky, reviewing the same novel in World Literature Today, had further praise, terming Perverzion a "brilliant postmodernist tour-de-force … [that] offers a poignant exploration of the place of the contemporary Ukrainian intellectual in the global cultural order through an encounter with the Western Other." Chernetsky went on to call the novel "a veritable encyclopedia of styles and literary forms."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Review of Contemporary Fiction, fall, 2005, Michael Pinker, review of Perverzion, p. 146.

Slavic and East European Journal, fall, 2006, Sharon M. Bailey, review of Perverzion.

World Literature Today, September 1, 2006, Vitaly Chernetsky, review of Perverzion, p. 61.

Yale Journal of Criticism, fall, 2003, "Translating a Novel's Novelty: Yuri Andrukhovych's Perverzion in English."

ONLINE

Berlin International Literary Festival,http://www.literaturfestival.com/ (July 19, 2007), "Yuri Andrukhovitch."

Caucaz.com,http://www.caucaz.com/ (January 8, 2007), Zofia Polak, interview with Yuri Andrukhovych.

Culturebase.net,http://www.culturebase.net/ (March 26, 2007), Anna Knoch, "Literature with No Boundaries."

DAAD,http://www.daad.de/ (July 19, 2007), "Yuri Andrukhovitch."

Ukraine—Poetry International Web,http://ukraine.poetryinternationalweb.org/ (January 1, 2007), "Yuri Andrukhovych"; Holger Gemba, "The Stanislav Phenomenon."

Ukrainian Weekly Online,http://www.ukrweekly.com/ (December 26, 2004), "Writer Yuri Andrukhovych's Address to European Parliament."