Victoria Amelina Explained

Victoria Amelina
Native Name:Вікторія Амеліна
Native Name Lang:uk
Birth Name:Viktoriia Yuriivna Amelina
Birth Date:1 January 1986
Birth Place:Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Death Place:Dnipro, Ukraine
Movement:Member of PEN International
Notableworks:
  • Fall Syndrome (2014)
  • Dom's Dream Kingdom (2017)

Viktoriia Yuriyivna Amelina (; Ukrainian: Вікторія Юріївна Амеліна; 1 January 1986 – 1 July 2023), later known as Victoria Amelina, was a Ukrainian novelist and war crimes researcher. She was the author of two novels and a children's book, a winner of the Joseph Conrad Literary Award[1] and a European Union Prize for Literature finalist.[2]

Early life and education

Victoria Amelina was born in Lviv. She emigrated to Canada with her father at the age of fourteen, then returned to Ukraine soon after.[3] At age 15, she was chosen to represent Lviv at a Russian-language contest in Moscow.[4] After completing a degree in computer science in Lviv, Amelina started her career in IT before becoming a full-time writer and poet in 2015.[5]

Writing

From 2015, when her first book Синдром листопаду, або Homo Compatiens (The Fall Syndrome: about, or Homo Compatiens) was published, she dedicated her time solely to writing. Her debut novel deals with the events at Maidan in 2014; the foreword was written by Yurii Izdryk. The novel has received several literary awards, and was welcomed by critics and scholars from Ukraine and wider Europe.[6] [7]

In 2016, Amelina published a book for children called Хтось, або водяне серце (Somebody, or Water Heart).

In 2017, she published a novel, Дім для Дома[8] (Dom's Dream Kingdom), about the family of a Soviet colonel who in the 1990s lived in the former childhood apartment in Lviv of the Polish Jewish author Stanisław Lem.[9] [10] The novel was short-listed for the LitAkcent literary award in 2017.[9] and European Union Prize for Literature in 2019.[11] In 2023 Amelina was offered a UK publishing deal for the book.[12]

Amelina was a member of PEN International. In 2018, she took part in 84th World PEN Congress in India as a delegate from Ukraine and gave a speech on Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner in Russia Oleg Sentsov.[13] In 2021 she received the Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski Literary Prize.[14] That same year, she started a literature festival in the Donetsk region.

In 2022, she started writing poetry as well.[15] She explained her motivations for this, saying ""That's what war leaves you. The sentences are as short as possible, the punctuation a redundant luxury, the plot unclear, but every word carries so much meaning. All this applies to poetry as well as to war".[16] Her prose and poems have been translated into numerous other languages.[8]

In June 2023 Amelina was awarded a yearlong residency in Paris for displaced Ukrainian writers.[17] She planned to use the residency to finish her most recent book, Looking at Women Looking at War, described as "a diary of about a dozen women, including [herself], pursuing justice". She was killed before her residency started.

Wartime work

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, she worked as a war crimes researcher for Truth Hounds, a Ukrainian organization.[18] [19] She used her training as a novelist to interview witnesses.

In September 2022, while doing research in the Izium region, she uncovered the war diary of fellow Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who had been killed by the occupying forces in March 2022.[20] In May 2023, Vakulenko received a posthumous award from the International Publishers Association, which Amelina accepted on his behalf.

Amelina also hosted internally displaced Ukrainians and helped to deliver humanitarian aid in Lviv.

Personal life and death

Amelina had a son in the early 2010s.

As of 2022, Amelina lived in Kyiv. In June 2023, after receiving a residency in Paris, Amelina considered moving there with her 12-year-old son.

On 27 June 2023, she was injured during the Russian attack on Kramatorsk while she was dining at RIA Pizza together with Héctor Abad, Sergio Jaramillo and Catalina Gómez. The restaurant was hit by an Iskander missile.[21] [22] Amelina died due to her injuries on 1 July at the Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro at the age of 37.[23] [24] She was buried in Lviv.

In 2023, a tribute to Amelina, Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened, was published by Arrowsmith Press. It included international contributions and previously published work by Amelina in English translation.[25]

Bibliography

Anthologies

Awards

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The Conrad Literary Award granted by the Polish Institute in Kyiv. The Polish Book Institute. 17 December 2021.
  2. Web site: Eurozine. 31 March 2022 .
  3. Web site: Colgate Mourns Death of Ukrainian Writer Victoria Amelina Colgate University . July 7, 2023. 2023-07-15 . www.colgate.edu . en.
  4. News: Amelina . Victoria . 2023-07-06 . Victoria Amelina: Ukraine and the meaning of home . en-GB . The Guardian . 2023-07-15 . 0261-3077.
  5. Web site: Victoria Amelina, war crimes researcher, killed in missile attack . 3 July 2023. 3 July 2023 . www.aljazeera.com . en.
  6. Web site: Eastern partnership literary review 2015/ 2. Issuu.com. 16 March 2016 . 18 August 2017.
  7. Web site: Empathy – the only thing that will save us : anthropology of Homo Compatiens in the novel of Victoria Amelina. 1 December 2015. Aesthetic-potential.com. 18 August 2017. 14 August 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170814021923/https://aesthetic-potential.com/about/essays/empathy-the-only-thing-that-will-save-us-anthropology-of-homo-compatiens-in-the-novel-of-victoria-amelina/. dead.
  8. Web site: Amelina Victoria . PEN Ukraine. April 2022 . en-US. 1 June 2023.
  9. Web site: Victoria Amelina: Pouze literatura MAČ2017 . Szablatura . Martin. brno.mac365.cz. cs . 10 May 2019.
  10. Web site: Wrocław in the City of Lem. The beginning of an international seminar . Wroclaw2016.pl. 18 August 2017.
  11. Web site: EUPL 2019 shortlisted candidates — European Union Prize for Literature. euprizeliterature.eu. 7 May 2019. 7 May 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190507074623/http://www.euprizeliterature.eu/news/20190502/shortlistedcandidates. dead.
  12. News: Higgins . Charlotte . 2023-07-14 . Stalin erased one generation of Ukraine's artists. Now Putin is killing another – including my friend . en-GB . The Guardian . 2023-07-15 . 0261-3077.
  13. Web site: "The stories win people's minds, not bullets": Victoria Amelina's speech about the trial of Sentsov at the 84th PEN Congress in Pune. PEN Ukraine. 29 September 2018 . en-US. 7 May 2019.
  14. News: Vinograd . Cassandra . 2023-07-03 . Ukrainian Writer Victoria Amelina Dies After Kramatorsk Strike . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-07-15 . 0362-4331.
  15. News: For Ukrainians, poetry isn't a luxury, it's a necessity during war . The Guardian . 9 December 2022 . Higgins . Charlotte .
  16. Web site: Simon . Scott . July 8, 2023 . Opinion: Remembering Ukrainian poet Victoria Amelina . July 15, 2023 . NPR.
  17. News: Kakissis . Joanna . Harbage . Claire . Palamarenko . Hanna . July 15, 2023 . She saved the diary of a Ukrainian writer killed by Russia. Then she was killed, too . NPR . July 15, 2023.
  18. Web site: An unshakable resolve persists in Ukraine, says Kyiv writer Victoria Amelina as she shares horrific war truths . 25 October 2022 . independent . Martina. Devlin. 21 October 2022 . en.
  19. Web site: Giovanni . Janine di . The Defiance of Celebrating Literature in the Midst of War . 25 October 2022 . Foreign Policy . 22 October 2022 . en-US.
  20. Duggan, Keith (25 March 2023). "Uncovering the buried diary of an executed Ukrainian writer". The Irish Times.
  21. News: . Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina in hospital after Kramatorsk missile strike. 29 June 2023.
  22. News: Emma. Graham-Harrison. 1 July 2023. Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina critically injured in Kramatorsk strike. The Guardian. 30 June 2023. 0261-3077.
  23. Web site: Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer, and our dearest colleague, passed away. PEN Ukraine. 2 July 2023 .
  24. News: Ukrainian writer dies after Kramatorsk strike. 2 July 2023. BBC News. 3 July 2023.
  25. Web site: Books . 2024-05-02 . ARROWSMITH . en-US.
  26. Web site: 1 April 2022 . Amelina Victoria . 5 July 2023 . PEN Ukraine . en.
  27. Decree of the President of Ukraine from 22 січня 2024 year № 16/2024 «Про відзначення державними нагородами України з нагоди Дня Соборності України»

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Victoria Amelina".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.