Join two Ukrainian authors, Oksana Lutsyshyna and Yuliya Musakovska, in discussion with Valzhyna Mort about the way language affects and reflects the realities of war and extremity. The panel will pay tribute to Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian author killed by a Russian missile, and her posthumous book Looking at Women, Looking at War.

Oksana Lutsyshyna is an award-winning Ukrainian writer, poet, and literary translator. She is the author of Persephone Blues (poetry, Arrowsmith, 2019), Ivan and Phoebe (a novel, in the English translation by Nina Murray, Deep Vellum Publishing, 2023; in the original, Old Lion Publishers, 2019), Felicity's Poems (poetry, in Ukrainian, Old Lion Publishers, 2018), Love Life (a novel, in the English translation by Nina Murray, HURI, 2024; in the original, Old Lion Publishers, 2015), I Am Listening to the Song of America (poems, in Ukrainian, Old Lion Publishers, 2010), The Sun Seldom Sets (novel, in Ukrainian, Fakt, 2007), Without Blushing (short stories, Fakt, 2007), and two more poetry collections.

Yuliya Musakovska (born 1982) is a Ukrainian poet, writer and translator. She has published six poetry collections in Ukrainian, most recently Stones and Nails (2024). Her collection The God of Freedom (2021) was among the finalists for the Lviv UNESCO City of Literature Prize and top eight nominees for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize. In 2024, The God of Freedom was released from Arrowsmith Press in English translation by Olena Jennings and the author. In 2023, Yuliya paused her 20-year career in international business to dedicate herself to cultural activism and global advocacy for Ukraine. She is a member of PEN Ukraine. She lives in Lviv, Ukraine, and has remained there throughout the war.

Valzhyna Mort is a poet and translator born in Minsk, Belarus. She is the author of three poetry collections, Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), Collected Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2011) and, mostly recently, Music for the Dead and Resurrected (FSG, 2020), named one of the best poetry book of 2020 by The New York Times and The NPR, and the winner of the 2020 International Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2022 UNT Rilke Prize. Mort is an Associate Professor in Literatures in English at Cornell University.