Name: Myroslav Laiuk
Age: 28
Education: Philosophy and Literature, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
Profession: Poet, author and novelist
Did you know? Laiuk recently performed at a poetry festival in Africa, where the audience especially enjoyed a poem about his grandfather.
Myroslav Laiuk, a 28-year-old author from the mountainous, western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk, is already making waves in the tough, competitive world of literature, in both his home country and abroad.
His popular poems and prose have been published in English, German, Polish, Czech, Lithuanian and Azerbaijani, as well as his native Ukrainian, and the prolific poet and novelist is often being recognized and awarded for his work.
In 2016, Laiuk was shortlisted for the British BBC’s Book of the Year award where Tanya Malyarchuk, also from Ivano-Frankivsk, took home the top prize.
Laiuk has begun to attract international attention, although he’s “just getting started.”
“Now we see considerable interest in Ukrainian authors abroad… it’s connected not only with the subject… or those who talk about the Revolution of Dignity and Maidan, but also, quite simply: interesting writers,” Laiuk said. “A few weeks ago, I returned from one of the largest festivals on the African continent: Poetry Africa. Ukrainian poetry for them is something new. They almost know nothing about us, but as it turned out, we have much more in common than it might at first seem.”
A philosophy and literature graduate of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, that boasts alumni such as theologian and philosopher Grigory Skorovoda and classical composer Maksim Berezovsky, Laiuk is well on track to join the ranks of that school’s esteemed and famous graduates.
Laiuk likes to find creative inspiration, as many famous writers do, in the more mundane and ordinary experiences of everyday life. “Grumpy and funny people in the subway; frosty weather; pigeons on a monument — in all this, the author lives,” he says. “All this, becomes creativity.
“I’ve been writing since a preschool age,” he says. “At first, relatives didn’t believe it was my work and they searched for the books that I was copying from… I have always written.”
As an author, a young man “and as a person,” Laiuk says he has only one real ambition. “To bring joy to people,” he says. “Every moment of life is filled with emotions, the discovery of a new consciousness of importance. And joy is possible when you change for the better the lives of those around you. The opportunity to create is what develops us as people and allows us to get answers to the most important questions.”
