Key points
- Estonian translator Anna Vershik has received the main annual literary prize of the Estonian Cultural Endowment for translating Ukrainian poetry.
- The collection Kas rabelen välja sellest tusast? features translations of Ukrainian poems.
- Vershik has been translating Ukrainian poetry since 2019.
- The book includes works by various contemporary Ukrainian poets.
Estonian translator Anna Vershik has received the main annual literary award of the Estonian Cultural Endowment for her collection of Ukrainian poetry translations, Kas rabelen välja sellest tusast? (“Will I Break Free from This Sorrow”), published in Estonia. She announced the news in a comment to Suspilne Сulture.
The book includes translations of contemporary Ukrainian poets, on which Vershik has been working since 2019. Her first published translation was Oleksandr Averbukh’s poem “I Do Not Know the Russian Language…”, which she shared on Facebook.
By profession, Vershik is a linguist specialising in multilingualism. The themes of language transition and linguistic identity became a natural entry point for her into the world of Ukrainian poetry.
The title of the collection comes from a line in a poem by Anatolii Dnistrovyi, whose works are also featured in the book.
The volume also includes poems by Artur Dron, Daryna Hladun, Ihor Mitrov, Halyna Kruk, Hanna Klymenko-Synook, Iia Kiva, Iryna Shuvalova, Yuliia Musakovska, Mariia Kozyrenko, Oleh Kotsarev, Olha Povoroznyk, Oleksandr Averbukh, Olesia Mamchych, Ostap Slyvynskyi and Anna Vershik herself.
The publication is supplemented with short biographies and photographs of the authors.
Vershik notes that she selected the poems that personally resonated with her, regardless of genre or thematic structure, and that some poets approached her with requests to translate their work.
According to Vershik, translation is her way of responding to the difficult events unfolding in Ukraine.
I translate because I cannot not translate. When terrible things happen, you have to do something. Some people help the army, some deliver humanitarian aid. And I translate.
– Anna Vershik.
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