In connection with the Lviv BookForum 2026, writer and journalist Sasha Dovzhyk presents a curated list of ten essential books written by Ukrainians in English or translated into English. Highlighting Ukraine’s rich literary tradition and long-standing history of resistance against imperial erasure—particularly in the context of ongoing Russian attacks on Ukrainian publishing infrastructure—the selection spans various genres, eras, and perspectives.
The recommended works include:
1. **Lesia Ukrainka, *Cassandra* (translated by Nina Murray):** A fin-de-siècle poetic drama by a canonical writer who approached western classical themes through a feminist and anti-colonial lens, reinterpreting the Trojan myth from the perspective of a disbelieved truth-teller.
2. **Victoria Amelina, *Looking at Women Looking at War*:** An unfinished testament by a novelist and war crimes researcher who documented survivors’ stories before being killed by a Russian missile strike in 2023. The book was assembled posthumously by her family and friends.
3. **Maik Yohansen, *Dr. Leonardo’s Journey to Sloboda Switzerland with His Future Lover, the Beautiful Alcesta* (translated by Uilleam Blacker):** A playful modernist “landscape novel” by a member of Ukraine’s “Executed Renaissance” generation, who was purged by the Soviet regime in the 1930s.
4. **Olena Stiazhkina, *Cecil the Lion Had to Die* (translated by Dominique Hoffman):** A novel exploring the multi-ethnic history and complex identity of eastern Ukraine, challenging monochromatic post-Soviet stereotypes of the Donetsk region.
5. **Kateryna Zarembo, *Ukrainian Sunrise: Stories of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions from the Early 2000s* (translated by Tetiana Savchynska):** A nonfiction work examining the engineered erasure of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions’ European past while highlighting the communities and patriots who maintained Ukrainian identity before 2014.
6. **Yuri Andrukhovych, *The Moscoviad* (translated by Vitaly Chernetsky):** A 1993 postmodern, darkly humorous novel set in 1991 that portrays the collapse of the Soviet Union from the viewpoint of a colonised subject inside Moscow State University.
7. **Serhiy Zhadan, *Voroshilovgrad* (translated by Isaac Wheeler and Reilly Costigan-Humes):** A prophetic 2010 novel about an uprooted post-Soviet man returning to an eastern borderland community confronting trauma, territorial defense, and an impending landscape of conflict.
8. **Artem Chapeye, *Ordinary People Don’t Carry Machine Guns* (translated by Zenia Tompkins):** A frontline memoir documenting the first three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, capturing the internal conflicts of a pacifist left-wing intellectual forced to take up arms.
9. **Artur Dron, *We Were Here* (translated by Yuliya Musakovska):** A poetry collection written largely in the frontline trenches by a young serving soldier, reflecting on the resilience of verse and the heavy silences of wartime.
10. **Serhii Plokhy, *The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine*:** An accessible historical overview by a prominent historian that traces Ukraine’s geopolitical position at the crossroads of multiple empires from antiquity to modern national identity.
