Kateryna Babkina’s book, “Nikt tak nie tańczył jak mój dziadek” published in a Polish translation by Workshops of Culture has hit the jackpot! It has won the first place in the Angelus Central European Literature Award 2021, the Natalya Gorbanevskaya Readers Award, while best translation award has gone to Bohdan Zadura.
“My Grandfather Danced the Best” is a series of stories about five families whose children meet at school on 1 September in the first year of Ukraine’s independence, and remain friends for life.
“Then, a tall girl blinked resolutely and released the hand of her classmate who had managed to forget his anxieties, such was the extent of everything which was new and inconceivable, and she moved her thin fingers along Lilitchka’s collar. From the collar, she unfastened a plastic mouse, a shiny grey brooch with touches of pink, and held it on her open palm for the weeping boy to take. ‘This is for you’, she said. “A gift. Please, stop crying. Stop right now.”. Then it seemed he stopped. Maybe not right away, but he definitely did.”
Buy the Polish translation of the book in the online store of Workshops of Culture
( b. 1985 in Ivano-Frankivsk) – a well-known Ukrainian writer, journalist, screenwriter and cultural manager. She has published several books of poetry, debuting with St.Elmo’s fires (2002), the novel “Sonia” (nominated for the Ukrainian BBC Book of the Year 2013), a collection of short stories and books for children. She also writes screenplays for films and has written the play “Hamlet Babylon”, which was performed in Kiev, Geneva and Vienna. Her works have been translated into English, Czech, French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Romanian, Russian and Hebrew. Workshops of Culture have published her short stories “Szczęsliwi Nadzy Ludzie / “Happy Naked People” (2018) and the novel “Sonia” (2018).
Wschodni Express
The “Wschodni Express” series introduces Polish readers to the latest literary works of Poland’s eastern neighbours. The most topical problems of Eastern European societies are discussed and a critically distanced and humorous view of Europe, of themselves in Europe and of Europe in them is shown.
The series focuses mainly on diverse prose and essays, but also on poetry. Our authors include the most prominent writers from Ukraine, Belarus or Lithuania, including Jurij Andruchowycz, Andrij Bondar, Oleksandr Bojczenko, Andrij Lubka, Hałyna Kruk, Mykoła Riabczuk, Natalka Śniadanko, but also authors little known in Poland. The range of our publications includes short stories by Oleg Sentsov, the filmmaker and writer who spent five years in the prison camps of present-day Russia. We are proud to collaborate with, among others, Bohdan Zadura, one of the most renowned Polish translators of Ukrainian prose and poetry. The name refers to the famous “literary trains”, such as Literature Express Europe 2000, which carried over 100 writers and poets from 43 countries from Lisbon to Berlin, and the Ukrainian magazine Potysah76 – “Pociąg 76” (Train 76), dedicated to Central-Eastern European culture.