The full appeal can be read here. IPA appeals to all members to promote the call and support Ukrainian publishing.
Later in May, at the World Expression Forum in Lillehammer, the IPA held a tribute for Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina, who had attended the Forum in 2023 to receive the 2023 IPA Prix Voltaire Special Award for Volodymyr Vakulenko, murdered by Russian soldiers during the war. Amelina herself was killed just weeks later in a bomb blast.
Opening the tribute Kristenn Einarsson, chair of the IPA Freedom to Publish Committee said: Last year I spoke of this war as a war on culture. Just last week one of the major printing presses, home to book publisher Vivat, but printing for almost all Ukrainian publishing houses, was destroyed, killing another 7 Ukrainians and injuring 22. We must continue to support our colleagues in Ukraine, to keep them writing, publishing.
Tetyana Teren, Executive Director of PEN Ukraine, took to the stage and opened with Amelina’s own words from the year before: ‘I am a Ukrainian journalist and cultural manager speaking on behalf of my colleague and close friend Victoria Amelina and more than 100 Ukrainian people of culture, who, unlike me, didn’t survive yet another attempt of the Russian Empire to erase Ukrainian identity.’
She closed with the appeal: If you believe in the power of books, as Victoria did to the depth of her heart, I would like to ask you to read and translate Ukrainian books and share the truth about the war not just against Ukraine but against our common values among which freedom is in the first place.
The IPA would like to thank our colleagues at FEP for their work supporting Ukrainian publishers and their involvement in the Tales of EUKraine project. They will honour the memory of Victoria Amelina by publishing a bilingual English-Ukrainian edition of her children’s book. That book should be available at the Frankfurt Book Fair.