Ukraine: A tribute to PEN member Victoria Amelina
Photo: CC BY-SA 4.0
“There are wounds only stories can heal”.
Victoria Amelina, London Book Fair, April 2023
01 July 2024: Today marks one year since PEN Ukraine member and war crimes investigator Victoria Amelina died from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk, Eastern Ukraine. According to PEN Ukraine, at least 111 cultural figures have been killed by Russian forces since the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. On this fateful day, PEN International pays homage to Amelina’s fearlessness, unique voice and rich literary legacy, and renews its call for justice and accountability.
Poem About a Crow
Victoria Amelina’s Poem About a Crow was inspired by her work interviewing women who lived through Russian occupation. Translated by Uilleam Blacker.
Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened
This is an extract from Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened, by Victoria Amelina. Her essay on her native city of Lviv was published in Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened: A Bouquet for Victoria Amelina, which pays tribute to the late writer. Edited by Askold Melnyczuk (Arrowsmith Press), the anthology is available free of charge here.
Dialogues on War
On 5 March 2022, Victoria Amelina spoke alongside Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen in the third episode of Dialogues on War, a series of conversations by PEN Ukraine featuring Ukrainian and foreign intellectuals speaking about the experience of the war and sharing their own observations. Amelina described her personal, poignant experiences of the Ukrainian language, as well as Ukraine’s unbreakable resolve. Watch the video below:
Additional information
For more information about the life and work of Victoria Amelina, please see War, Censorship and Persecution, PEN International’s Case List 2023/2024.
For more information about PEN Ukraine’s work, please click here.
Note to Editors
For further information please contact Aurélia Dondo, Head of Europe and Central Asia Region: Aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org