In the media
This page includes content both In English and In Ukrainian
15.01.2024 — The Guardian
Pray to the Empty Wells by Iryna Shuvalova review – hope’s last stronghold
Pray to the Empty Wells is a heart-stirring, gallant and prescient collection that reminds you of the otherness of poetry, its territorial freedoms and viewless wings (what cannot be seen – only imagined – is critical).
21.06.2023 — Apofenie
Emerging from the Space of Noise
A conversation with Iryna Shuvalova on silence, inner topography and freedom, and on what happens when we don't turn on our phones.
21.09.2021 — HoundArt
Nina Murray's review of Pray to the Empty Wells
Each book she [Shuvalova] publishes can be seen as an arrangement of poetry incidental to a particular moment in time, a fragment of a larger whole seen through a particular peep-hole.
24.08.2021 — The Los Angeles Review of Books
The "mova" I live in
Language is many things, but it is never just language. The mova I write in is the history I live in.
16.09.2019 — Versopolis Poetry
Hybrid Creature: Iryna Shuvalova on War, Democracy, and the Contemporary Ukrainian Poet
Here, Shuvalova responds to questions on poetry, democracy, war and her perspectives on Ukraine today.
18.03.2019 — Medium
Spotlight on: poetry and war
Iryna Shuvalova (2016) is a poet who loves places. She has been performing and publishing her poetry since she was 17 and has already authored four books of poems in Ukrainian.
07.12.2023 — Posestry
Iryna Shuvalova: "To leave the space of noise"
In a conversation with Iryna Shuvalova, Ukrainian author Anna Gruver delved into so-called unspoken topics, the importance of the ability to remain silent and listen to one another, the balancing act in poetry and translation, inner topography and freedom, and what happens when we don't turn on our phones. The conversation unfolded in two temporal dimensions: February 2022, the final weeks before the start of a full-scale invasion, and spring 2023.
24.04.2023 — Suspilne Kultura
"After we win this war, what comes next?" Iryna Shuvalova on war, trauma, anger, and a post-war vocabulary
In her interview on Suspilne Kultura, the poet discusses Ukrainian anger, words of love and of refuge, ways of discussing trauma and posttrauma, and the vocabulary that needs to emerge for the post-war era.
08.2021 — Krytyka
The language I live in
Sometimes, I want my language to be just language. Not a weapon, not a treasure, not the tongue of a guelder rose. Not a thing to fight for. Not a thing to fight with. A thing one uses mindlessly, like when we scratch our head with our hand.
19.03.2021 — LB.ua
Iryna Shuvalova: “I wish our feet were planted more deeply in our personal histories and experiences”
A conversation in the “Culture on Hold” series with one of Ukraine’s most notable contemporary poets, translator, educator, and scholar Iryna Shuvalova.
13.05.2020 — PEN Ukraine
#PEN_TEN Interview with Iryna Shuvalova
In the #PEN_TEN series, a poet and translator Iryna Shuvalova tells us about the writers’ greatest responsibility in our times, about truth and fantasy in literature, and about the word’s ability to change things in the face of war.
31.12.2021 — LITCENTR
“The poet has a thing or two to teach the scholar or the counsellor, and vice versa” — Iryna Shuvalova on the many facets of her professional life
During the 2021 Carpathian Writers’ Retreat supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, we spoke to Iryna Shuvalova, a writer, scholar, and educator, about the impact of different cultural contexts on her worldview and on her work.
27.01.2021 — The Old Lion Publishing House
5 facts about Iryna Shuvalova
At the time when we are practicing social distancing and are limiting ourselves to online meetings, good conversations became even more important. In one such conversation, Iryna Shuvalova spoke to us of her stoneorchardwoods, of the things that matter and the parts we play, as well as of living in other countries and in other voices.
25.02.2020 — Litakcent
Iryna Shuvalova: war songs help to understand both oneself and one’s enemy
In today’s interview for “Chytomo”, Iryna Shuvalova speaks about digital folklore, the basic coordinates of war, and about the songs sung on both sides of the front line.
25.07.2019 — The Day
Iryna Shuvalova: “The topic of my Cambridge research is the voices of the war in Donbas”
The poet, translator, and scholar shares her thoughts on contemporary Ukrainian literature, the literary messianism, and on two forms of memory.
It seems, Shuvalova does in Ukrainian writing something that has never been done before.
”
Svitlana Bohdan
for 'Ukrainskyi Tyzhden'
Iryna Shuvalova’s poems weave a mythical landscape with the force of folk incantations that can both sparkle and burn.
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Virlana Tkacz
If I had to limit my review to the briefest description possible, I would probably use this word combination: the living poetry.
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Roksoliana Sviato
for 'Litakcent'