Serhiy Zhadan

Born in 1974, Serhiy Zhadan is Ukraine’s celebrated novelist, poet, essayist and translator. His own works have been translated into German, English, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Belorussian, Russian, Hungarian, Armenian and Swedish.

A graduate of Kharkiv University, Serhiy Zhadan studied philology for three consecutive years, taught Ukrainian and world literature for four years after that, and then retired from teaching. He now lives and works in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Today, Zhadan is a critically acclaimed most prominent poet of the 1990s in his country. In 2008 the Russian translation of his novel Anarchy in the UKR was shortlisted by the National Bestseller Prize in Russia.

Interesting fact about Serhiy’s writing, as noted by critics, is that his prose is very poetic and his poetry is very prosaic. This, along with masterful improvisation and play on words that received a flattering ‘the verbal jazz’ tag, has been noted in all his works and is, by far, considered his trademark. Theme wise, he writes about his generation and the epoch he is living in, he is its witness and he neither cares about the weight of literary authority over him, nor about the impression his words might have on another; Serhiy Zhadan simply creates. 

To book Serhiy Zhadan for speaking engagements, please visit Glagoslav Speakers.