Too Close to Infinity: Poems from Ukraine

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Notes on contributors

Vasyl Makhno

OSTAP SLYVYNSKY was born in Lviv in 1978. He is a poet, translator, essayist, and literary critic. He has authored four books of poetry and was awarded the Antonych Literary Prize (1997), the Hubert Burda Prize for young poets from Eastern Europe (2009), and the Kovaliv Fund Prize (2013). Slyvynsky coordinated the International Literary Festival at the Publishers Forum in Lviv in 2006–2007. In 2016, he organized a series of readings titled “Literature Against Aggression” during the Forum. Slyvynsky’s translations earned him the Polish Embassy’s translation prize (2007) and the Medal for Merit to Polish Culture (2014). 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. Slyvynsky teaches Polish literature and literary theory at Ivan Franko National University. Correspondence: [email protected].

ANASTASIA AFANASIEVA was born in Kharkiv and was living there when the war broke out. After hiding in a basement for weeks, she was finally able to escape. She is now a refugee living in Lithuania. She is the author of six books of poetry and the winner of numerous major literary awards and prizes, including the Debut Prize and the Russian Award, two of the top awards in Russian poetry. Her poetry has been translated into English, German, Italian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. In the US, her poems in translation have appeared in Cimarron Review, Jacket Magazine, and Blue Lyra Review. She is the translator of Ilya Kaminsky’s book Music of the Wind (Ailuros, 2012). The English language translation of Afanasieva’s poem about refugees won First Place in the 2014 Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Prize Competition. Correspondence: [email protected].

LYUBA YAKIMCHUK is a poet, drama, and scriptwriter, born in 1985 in Pervomaisk, Luhansk region, and currently living in Kyiv, Ukraine. She is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including Apricots of Donbas, which received the International Poetic Award of the Kovalev Foundation (NYC, USA). This book was listed in the Top 10 books about the war in Forbes magazine, Ukraine. Her poems have been translated into more than twenty languages. She is also the celebrated author of two film scripts and two plays. She is the first poet to perform at the Grammy Awards; in 2022 she performed her poem “Prayer” during John Legend’s performance of his song “Free,” which was dedicated to Ukraine (see the performance at https://tinyurl.com/2mnhzyku). In 2015 Kyiv’s New Time magazine listed Yakimchuk among the one hundred most influential people in the arts in Ukraine. Correspondence: [email protected].

VASYL MAKHNO is a Ukrainian poet, prose writer, essayist, and translator. He is the author of fourteen collections of poetry and most recently the book of poems One Sail House (2021). He has also published a book of short stories, The House in Baiting Hollow (2015); a novel, The Eternal Calendar (2019); and four books of essays, The Gertrude Stein Memorial Cultural and Recreation Park (2006), Horn of Plenty (2011), Suburbs and Borderland (2019), and Biking along the Ocean (2020). Makhno’s works have been widely translated into many different languages; his books have been published in Germany, Israel, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and the United States. Two poetry collections, Thread and Other New York Poems (2009) and Winter Letters (2011), were published in English translation. The poetry collection Paper Bridge, translated by Olena Jennings, is forthcoming from Plamen Press. He is the recipient of Kovaliv Fund Prize (2008), Serbia’s International Povele Morave Prize in Poetry (2013), the BBC Book of the Year Award (2015), and the Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize “Encounter” (2020). Makhno currently lives with his family in New York City. Correspondence: [email protected].