| Zirka Menzatyuk | |
| Native Name: | Зірка Мензатюк |
| Native Name Lang: | Ukrainian |
| Birth Date: | 21 October 1954 |
| Birth Place: | Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) |
| Occupation: | Writer, journalist |
Zirka Menzatyuk (Ukrainian: Зірка Захаріївна Мензатюк; 21 October 1954) is a Ukrainian children's book author and journalist; from 1995 the Member of National Writers' Union of Ukraine. She lives and works in Kyiv.
She was born in 1954 in Mamajivzi in the Chernivtsi oblast.
After winning first place at the regional Olympics for Ukrainian language and literature, she was able to study journalism at the Ivan Franko University of Lviv from 1972 to 1977 on the recommendation of the Writers’ Union. After graduation she worked as a correspondent for various Soviet-Ukrainian newspapers in the region and nationwide. Dissatisfied with the situation of false reporting, she gave up her journalism career and as of 1988 devoted herself to writing literary texts.[1]
The first fairy tale book of the author was published in 1990 under the title "Тисяча парасольок" (A Thousand Umbrellas). Her second book "Арніка" (Arnica, 1993) is a story about a Carpathian magic potion.
After the Ukrainian book market crisis, during which Zirka Menzatyuk published her texts in magazines, a book about famous churches and monasteries in Ukraine was published in 2002.
Zirka Menzatyuk also published a book entitled "Київські казки" (Kyiv Stories, 2006) about Kyiv and its fairy-tale aspects with heroes such as the sorceress Dobrada. In the same year, one of her the most famous book "Таємниця козацької шаблі" (The Mystery of the Cossack Sabre) was published.
The books of Zirka Menzatyuk have been published in Ukraine and in the United States, and have been awarded the Lesia Ukrainka Prize (2007). She has received prizes in Slovakia and Poland, won the US International Literary Competition, and was awarded the Natali Zabila Literary Prize for her work (2005).