Tania Malyarchuk  [ Ukraine ]

 

Tania Malyarchuk was born in 1983 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, and studied philosophy at Vasyl Stefanyk University. She subsequently moved to Kyiv, where she worked as a journalist for the TV channel Kanal 5, among others.

In 2004 she published her first prose volume, with a title that roughly translates as »Adolfo’s Final Match or Roses for Liza«, followed by four volumes of short stories. 2009 saw the publication of »Neunprozentiger Haushaltsessig« (tr: Ninety percent vinegar essence), a volume of the author’s short stories translated into German. Three different worlds are presented in three parts: the world of the present »I«, the archaic world of a village from an indeterminate time, and the world of a Ukrainian child just at the end of the Cold War. Maljartschuk’s characters are failed figures who seem from the outside to act in a rather absurd or crazy manner, but manage to create for themselves an inner freedom while the old and new worlds surrounding them collide. In a review, the author Petra van Cronenburg discussed Malyarchuk’s narrative style as such: »Initially the book seemed almost rough, deeply melancholic and drenched in emotion. But this impression is quickly dispelled if the reader engages with the soft tones that lead to a tiny, momentary shift of atmosphere to much larger effect.« In 2012 Malyarchuk published her first novel, titled »Biohrafija vypadkovoho čuda« (tr: Biography of a chance miracle), which tells the story of Lena, who grows up in a world of arbitrariness and violence. However, Lena is able to defend herself with humor, stubbornness and a healthy dose of courage as she searches for the »chance miracle« – a flying woman who always appears where help is needed most. Lena helps people and animals in danger of being crushed by the country’s transformation into a market-based democracy. The »Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung« called the novel a work of sublime sadness as well as wonderfully bitter piece of literature in the style of Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, a satirist from the Russian school of critical realism. In 2014 she published a volume of nine stories in German titled »Von Hasen und anderen Europäern: Geschichten aus Kiew« (tr: On rabbits and other Europeans: Stories from Kiev), in which various forms of Homo sovieticus are classified by means of animals and their characteristic attributes.

Her novel »Zabuttja« (2016; tr. Oblivion) was named »Book of the Year« by the BBC’s Ukrainian program. Here the life of the forgotten Ukrainian folk hero Vyacheslav Lypynskyj is artfully intertwined with that of the first-person narrator, who follows his traces in the past in order to better understand her own present and to defy the memory of the Soviet uprooting.

In 2018 Malyarchuk received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for the text “Frogs in the Sea” in Klagenfurt. In the same year her first children’s book “MOX NOX” was published. Most recently, »Za taki grichi Bog shche podjakue« (2020; tr. God thanks for such sins), a collection of fifty poems, was published.

The author regularly writes columns for Deutsche Welle (Ukraine) and for Zeit Online. Malyarchuk’s work has been translated into eight languages. She currently lives in Vienna.

 

Bibliography

 

Ендшпіль Адольфо, або троянда для Лізи

Лілея-НВ

Івано-Франківськ, 2004

 

Згори вниз. Книга страхів

Фоліо

Харків, 2006

 

Як я стала святою

Фоліо

Харків, 2006

 

Говорити

Фоліо

Харків, 2007

 

Звірослов

Фоліо

Харків, 2009

 

Біографія випадкового чуда

КСД

Харків, 2012

 

Забуття

Видавництво Старого Лева

Львів, 2016

 

MOX NOX

Видавництво Старого Лева

Львів, 2018

 

За такі гріхи Бог ще подякує

Видавництво 21

Чернівці, 2020

 

 

In other languages:

 

Neunprozentiger Haushaltsessig, 2009

 

Biografie eines zufälligen Wunders, 2013

 

Von Hasen und anderen Europäern, 2014

 

Überflutet, 2016

 

Blauwal der Erinnerung, 2019