Reading Group with Yaroslava Strikha Desember, 5
On Friday, December 5 at 18:30, we invite you to spend the evening with the Reading Group — a space for conversations, reflections, and discovering new points of connection between texts, art, and personal experience.
This time, together with literary scholar and moderator Yaroslava Strikha, we will talk about Serhiy Zhadan’s short story collection Arabesques (2024) and explore how the themes of the book resonate with Lesia Khomenko’s solo exhibition Imaginary Distance.
During the meeting, we will discuss:
- How contemporary authors enter into dialogue with cultural heritage and images of the past;
- Why dramatic experiences call into question the very possibility of conveying them;
- How an artist’s and writer’s perspective shifts under the influence of circumstances.
“It was very important to find a tone that would, on the one hand, avoid using the war as literary material or romanticizing death, pain, and loss; on the other hand, avoid turning everything into some kind of abstract poetics; and thirdly, not slip into documentary, photographic points of view. I was searching for such an intonation, and in these 12 stories I roughly found some answers for myself,” — Serhiy Zhadan on Arabesques.
Moderator:
Yaroslava Strikha — translator and literary scholar. She has translated works by Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Don DeLillo, Kate Atkinson, Art Spiegelman, Paul Auster, Henry Thoreau, and many other British and American authors. She defended her PhD (2017) and taught at Harvard University.
Participation is free with prior registration.
The number of spots is limited.
Come to discover new meanings together, talk about what resonates, and feel how literature and art help us see familiar things in new ways.
