The Strategic Communications Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will join the 12th International Book Arsenal Festival as a program partner. In particular, the UAF StratCom will co-organize the exhibition project I Put On a Pixel Camo. Stories of Those Who Have Chosen to Fight and will present the documentary Resilience and Unity. Writers Explain How Not to Lose the Future.

The I Put On a Pixel Camo exhibition project will present portraits of Ukrainian men and women who have applied their civilian skills in the military, put on uniforms and continued their professional path in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Based on a series of stories recorded by the UAF StratCom, Mari Kinovych, a well-known Ukrainian illustrator, created a series of portraits of military personnel who made a conscious choice to fight and use their profession to defend their motherland.

“For Mystetskyi Arsenal, the program partnership with the Ukrainian Armed Forces is of great importance. It is an honor for us to join forces with the General Staff’s StratCom, as the fate of our country, and therefore our culture, directly depends on the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We would like to help those of us who search for an answer to the question: How can I be useful in defense of my country? Thus, we have tried to initiate such a conversation through the real stories of Ukrainian women and men embodied in the illustrations by Mari Kinovych, which you will be able to see soon at the Book Arsenal Festival,” comments on the partnership Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, Director General of Mystetskyi Arsenal.

In addition to the I Put on a Pixel Camo exhibition project, during the Book Arsenal Festival, the UAF StratCom will hold a premiere screening of the documentary Resilience and Unity. Writers Explain How Not to Lose the Future. The film analyzes the significance of literature in the context of hybrid warfare and emphasizes the role of writers in shaping the national consciousness and the country’s cultural backbone. The experts of the film include: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Oksana Zabuzhko, Serhiy Zhadan, Oleksandr Mykhed, Iryna Tsilyk, and Artem Chekh. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion.

“The program partnership between the UAF StratCom and Mystetskyi Arsenal opens up new opportunities for dialogue between the military and artistic communities on key aspects of national resilience, which, in turn, is the core of national security. In this context, the exhibition project I Put on a Pixel Camo and the premiere of the documentary Resilience and Unity, followed by a panel discussion, will become not just cultural events but also an educational forum where crucial issues of information security, the impact of hybrid warfare, and the role of the intellectual elite in strengthening society will be discussed,” says Colonel Artemii Katkov, project coordinator at the UAF StratCom.

This year, the 12th International Book Arsenal Festival will be held from May 30 (the evening of the official opening) to June 2. The festival will consist of the program component and the book fair, which will take place on the first floor of the Old Arsenal building.

 Mystetskyi Arsenal is Ukraine’s flagship cultural institution that brings together various arts – from contemporary art, new music and theater to literature and museum development. The mission of Mystetskyi Arsenal is to contribute to modernization of Ukrainian society and Ukraine’s integration into the global context based on the axiological potential of culture. Being an annual project of Mystetskyi Arsenal, the International Book Arsenal Festival is an intellectual event in Ukraine, where the book, literary, visual, musical, and theatrical scenes develop and interact.

UAF StratCom is a military command body responsible for organizing, coordinating, and overseeing the implementation of strategic communications activities within the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This year the International Book Arsenal Festival will continue its cooperation with the bookstores that will work as operators of certain thematic sections and will be able to offer Book Arsenal visitors their thematic selections of books of certain genres and editions of those book market participants that will not be represented with their own stands.

The stand of each bookstore will be devoted to a certain theme, in particular:

• book.ua   — the Fiction, Books in English section;
• Readeat — the Fiction section;
• Sens — the Non-fiction section;
• Top Comics — the Comics and Graphic section;
• Book Lion — the Art Books section.

“The experience of working with the bookstores that had operated at Book Arsenal the previous year convinced us of the need to continue contributing to the development of the Ukrainian book ecosystem in such a way. This is valuable cooperation for us, which we have decided to continue this year. By increasing the visibility of bookstores on the book market, Book Arsenal aims at providing an opportunity for all publishers and authors to present their editions to the Ukrainian and foreign readers who will visit this year’s festival,” Yuliia Kozlovets, the Director of Book Arsenal, comments on the format of participation of bookstores in this year’s festival.

The publishers who will be represented at the fair exclusively through the bookstores can also place their editions in New Titles by bringing a book directly to New Titles on the first day of the festival or by sending an additional copy through the bookstore where the book will be sold during the festival, that must be agreed in advance with the bookstore.

At the same time, we draw your attention to the fact that Book Arsenal does not influence the terms of cooperation and agreements between the bookstores and authors or publishers regarding their representation at the festival.

In order to offer your book/books for sale, please, contact the bookstores directly:

• Book store book.ua — [email protected]
• Comic books store Top Comics — [email protected]
• Book store Sense — [email protected]
• Book store Readeat — [email protected]
• Book store Book Lion — [email protected]

The New Titles project has been taking place annually since 2015 in cooperation with the Chytomo media resource and aims at helping readers learn about new book titles, decide on purchases and increase the visibility of Ukrainian publishers.

From May 30 to June 2 in the space of Book Arsenal New Titles will collect the editions published from June 2023 to May 2024 and will be focused on books about the war of any genre, subject or age category. In the space of the festival Titles will be located in section A1 (the left wing of the first floor of the Mystetskyi Arsenal). Important: New Titles in the space of Book Arsenal will be compiled exclusively of the editions presented by publishers and bookstores at the Festival-2024 fair.

An important block of the New Titles project on the Chytomo website is reviews about the war, Chytomo will devote five selections to the books by military servicemen and servicewomen, authors in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In general, before the start of Book Arsenal, during April-May, a series of 12 materials, which will introduce the most important new titles of the book publishing market over 2023-2024, will be published on the Chytomo website. Literary critics will present their thematic selections: Tetiana Petrenko, Ganna Uliura, Oleh Kotsarev, Anastasia Gerasymova, Bogdana Romantsova, Valentyna Vzdulska, Vitalina Makaryk and others.

After the end of the festival, the books from New Titles in the space of the festival will be sent to the libraries that were destroyed or damaged because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, within the Unbreakable Libraries program of PEN Ukraine.

International Book Arsenal Festival is an annual project of the Mystetskyi Arsenal, founded in 2011. It is an intellectual event of Ukraine, where the book, literary, visual, musical and theater scenes develop and interact, the important issues of human existence, as well as of society and culture, are raised and explored, encouraging participants and visitors to take a proactive position.

Chytomo is a media about books, reading culture and book publishing. Over 15 years of its activity, the media has provided informational support to more than 1,600 projects, organizations and initiatives that work in the field of literature and book publishing. Chytomo performs the important functions of criticism, informing and the development of the ecosystem.

The International Book Arsenal Festival continues its cooperation with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, which will take place on April 8-11 in the city of Bologna, Italy. This year the focus of the partnership is the Talking Pictures initiative, devoted to the visual book and modern book publishing for the adult audience. The initiative is jointly organized by Book Arsenal and BolognaBookPlus, an offshoot of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, that works with the global book publishing.

Within the initiative Book Arsenal and BolognaBookPlus organized raising of visual books from Ukrainian publishers that were published in 2021-2024. The international jury will compile a collection of editions from them, that will be exhibited at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Book Arsenal-2024, and will also choose a winning book, the author of which will be invited to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2025.

For participation in the Talking Pictures initiative, the Book Arsenal team accepted editions that met the following criteria:

• books published by Ukrainian publishing houses and created by Ukrainian authors, illustrators, designers, photographers, etc.;
• books published during 2021-2024;
• books for the adult audience.

Books of the following genres were eligible for submission: illustrated books, graphic novels, comic books, books about graphic design, photo albums, art editions, editions about architecture and design, as well as of other genres and types of publications where the visual component dominates.

During the fair, within the initiative several events devoted to visual culture will take place:

April 8, 2 p.m.–2:50 p.m., Survival Corner — Talking Pictures: Ukraine’s Contemporary Visual Book Production — participants: studios seri/graph and Agrafka

April 9, 3:00 p.m.–3:45 p.m., BBPlus Theater — Talking Pictures: the New Award for Ukrainian Book Design, the Winner and Special Mentions — with the participation of the international jury of the initiative and Oksana Karpiuk, the manager of professional programs of Book Arsenal.

In addition, Pictoric and the International Book Arsenal Festival will present the international exhibition of illustrations When Everything Matters. Inspired by the main theme of the 11th International Book Arsenal Festival, it was presented for the first time at Book Arsenal-2023. The exhibition shows the works of leading Ukrainian and international authors. This project is a dialog of Ukrainian illustrators and graphic designers with artists from other countries and a discussion of important issues in the language of illustration. Curators: Oleg Gryshchenko, Anna Sarvira and Olena Staranchuk.

Let us remind you that last year the International Book Arsenal Festival also participated in the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, more details are here.

the Program of Events and the Stand of the Mystetskyi Arsenal

Ukrainian culture at this year’s Leipziger Buchmesse is represented by the national stand organized by the Ukrainian Book Institute, the stand of the Mystetskyi Arsenal and the stand of the International Poetry Festival Meridian Czernowitz.

The participation in the Leipziger Buchmesse, which will take place on March 21-24, became possible due to the support of the organizers of the Leipziger Buchmesse and the city of Leipzig.

The Mystetskyi Arsenal presents the stand whose visual concept is inspired by the UKRAINE ON FIRE project — an artistic initiative aimed at documenting and spreading contemporary Ukrainian art, that has been comprehending the war in Ukraine since 2014 till today, during the full-scale Russian invasion. At the stand of the Mystetskyi Arsenal visitors will be able to learn about contemporary Ukrainian art and the art of the 1910s-1930s by looking through the editions about the Mystetskyi Arsenal exhibitions, in particular the catalog of the Ukraine on Fire project, as well as to hear about the history of the institution and the International Book Arsenal Festival.

The visual component of the stand was created by Kostiantyn Martsenkivskiy, a designer of the Mystetskyi Arsenal.

“This year’s participation in the Leipziger Buchmesse is an opportunity for the Mystetskyi Arsenal to keep Ukraine on the agenda of German readers and intellectuals. It is important for us to continue talking about both the history of Ukrainian culture and the experience of the war here and now: to explain, to highlight the Ukrainian point of view, to listen to the arguments and counterarguments of our colleagues from other countries. We want not only to be heard, we strive to be understood, to think together about the huge challenges that the Russian war against Ukraine poses to the whole world. Culture, books and art in particular help conduct this dialog, help solve the most difficult dilemmas of our time,” Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, the Director General of the Mystetskyi Arsenal, says.

The events of the Ukrainian program, organized by the Goethe Institute Ukraine together with the National Art and Culture Museum Complex Mystetskyi Arsenal and in partnership with the Ukrainian Book Institute and the Ukrainian Institute, will take place on the stage of the national stand of Ukraine and on the stage of Café Europa. The program is funded by the city of Leipzig, the Saxon State Chancellery and the Leipziger Buchmesse.

Representatives of the Mystetskyi Arsenal will participate in eight events.

On March 21 at 2:30 p.m. the opening of the national stand Ukrainian Stories of Resistance and Identity will take place. Astrid Böhmisch (the Director of the Leipziger Buchmesse), Dr. Skadi Jennicke (the Mayor for Culture of the City of Leipzig, a representative of the Burgomaster of the City of Leipzig), Fabian Mühlthaler (the Director of the Goethe Institute Ukraine), Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta (the Director of the National Art and Culture Museum Complex Mystetskyi Arsenal), Oliver Schenk (the Minister of State and the Head of the State Chancellery of Saxony) and Kateryna Rietz-Rakul (the Head of the Representative Office in Germany) will participate in it.

On the same day at 3:30 p.m. Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, the Director of the National Art and Culture Museum Complex Mystetskyi Arsenal, will take part in the public talk Kyiv and Leipzig. From the Twinning of the Cities to the Partnership of People and Ideas together with Skadi Jennicke (the Mayor for Culture of the city of Leipzig), Lada Nakonechna (an artist, graphic designer, photographer and video artist) and Svitlana Libet (an art critic).

March 22 at 11:00 a.m.—the discussion Experience — Literature — Memory with Alexander Kratochvil, Olena Stiazhkina, Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta and Lia Dostlieva.

On the same day at 1:00 p.m. — the public talk The Best Book Design in Ukraine Now. Transformational Forces That Help Cope and Withstand. Volodymyr Havrysh, a book designer, an active military serviceman, Valeriia Guievska, a designer, the art director, the International Book Arsenal Festival, will take part in it. Olga Zhuk, the Deputy Director General of the Mystetskyi Arsenal for Contemporary Art and Museum Work, will moderate it.

On the same day at 5:00 p.m. — Design from the Frontline, the public talk with Volodymyr Havrysh (a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; an artist, designer and author of art books, who won the grand prix and several nominations in the Best Book Design 2023 Contest) and a German journalist Kristina Thomas.

March 23 at 10:15 a.m. — the public talk A Book for Children. Instructions for Use. A discussion with Yuliia Kozlovets (the International Book Arsenal Festival), Kateryna Mikhalitsyna (a writer, translator, editor, volunteer), Marietta Sander (the Head of the Goethe Institut Ukraine library) and Olena Zakharchenko (an author of books for children and adults).

On the same day at 11:00 a.m. — the panel discussion Creating in Turbulent Times: Anthologies and Catalogs, a conversation with curators and creators of anthologies, archives, collections and magazines. Participants: Lars Harmsen (the magazine Slanted, Germany), Olga Zhuk (Ukraine on Fire, the Mystetskyi Arsenal), Uliana Bychenkova (Listok), Lada Nakonechna (an artist, researcher, curator). Svitlana Libet (a writer, editor and journalist) will moderate it.

On the same day at 12:00 p.m.— the panel discussion Art for Protest, Strength and Endurance. Participants: Nelia Vakhovska (a scholar of German studies, literary translator, co-director of ViceVersa), Yevgenia Belorusets (an artist, writer, photographer, co-founder of the literary and art magazine Prostory, member of the interdisciplinary curatorial team Hudrada), Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta (an art manager and curator of contemporary art, the Director General of the Mystetskyi Arsenal), Maria Isserlis (a curator, art historian, co-curator of the exhibition The Kaleidoscope of History: Ukrainian Art of 1912-2023 in the Albertinum in Dresden, the Head of the International Relations Department of the Dresden State Art Collections).

You can learn more about the full Ukrainian program to be held at the Leipziger Buchmesse here.

At the invitation of the Stiftung Buchkunst Foundation and with the support of the Goethe Institute Ukraine, within the Best Book Design Contest of the International Book Arsenal Festival a professional trip of Ukrainian designers will take place on the days of the Leipziger Buchmesse. Among the participants of the trip there will be the designers who won the grand prix of the Best Book Design 2023 Contest, Volodymyr Havrysh and Maria Havrysh, as well as representatives of the Mystetskyi Arsenal team.

The program of the trip includes visits to design studios and bureaus, the German National Library, where the archive of the Best Book Design from All over the World competition is stored, the fair of independent publishers It’s a Book 2024 and participation in public events during the Leipziger Buchmesse.

Let us remind you that last year the Mystetskyi Arsenal also participated in the Leipziger Buchmesse. You can see here how it was.

The stand was provided to the Mystetskyi Arsenal free of charge due to the support of the fair organizers and partners.

The International Book Arsenal Festival, in cooperation with Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA) and with the financial support of the European Union, has selected mentors and emerging translators who will participate in a four-year international project.

We sincerely welcome 10 emerging translators, who have passed the competitive selection, to the project team:

• Translation from Spanish into Ukrainian — Oleksandra Laktionova.
• Translation from Italian — Olena Roman.
• Translation from Czech — Olha-Anastasiia Futoran.
• Translation from Polish — Iuliia Stakhivska.
• Translation from Dutch — Olga Bondarenko, Larysa Dobra.
• Translation from Serbian — Máximo André Martynenko Shchehlov.
• Translation from Slovenian — Yuliia Stankevych.
• Translation from Romanian — Onujec Ionela-Paulina.
• Translation from Bulgarian — Khrystyna Vengryniuk.

 The opportunities that will be available to the project participants:

• paid assignments on translation of 6 sample (prose) texts from emerging authors into Ukrainian;
• publication of these translations on the CELA website and other literary platforms across Europe;
• 4 international online masterclasses on the topics relevant to professional growth;
• mentorship program: participants will work with an established translator in the same language direction and with a literary consultant;
• development of a professional tool set for communication, including a photography and artist bio;
• 2 live meetings in Kyiv with the Ukrainian team of the project;
• 2 work weeks within the project. In Turin (Italy) and in Brussels (Belgium);
• 2 visits to a literary festival in the country of your target language;
• paid and mentored pitch session for (at least) one of your authors;
• connection to an international network, communication and discussions with more than 300 European writers and translators.

The CELA project is a training program for translators and a joint international experience with colleagues, also translators, from 11 European participating countries. One of the important components of this extensive process is the support from mentors in the professional development throughout the whole duration of the project. Each of the translators of the Ukrainian team will be accompanied by a mentor-translator in the chosen language direction.

Mentors of the CELA project (2024-2027) in the Ukrainian team:

Halyna Hrabovska was born in Lviv. She made her debut as a translator from Spanish in 2002 in the magazine The Courier of Kryvbas with the translation of Julio Cortázar’s short story The Droolings of the Devil. She has translated works by Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Horacio Quiroga, Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende and others.

Mariana Prokopovych is a translator from Italian and English into Ukrainian. She has translated three novels by Umberto Eco, as well as works by Luigi Pirandello, Italo Svevo, Giorgio Scerbanenco, Cesare Pavese, Primo Levi, James Joyce and others. She lives and works in Lviv.

Tetiana Okopna is a lecturer, translator from Czech, organizer of cultural events. She has translated into Ukrainian novels by Jáchym Topol, Petr Šabach, Jaroslav Rudiš, as well as some essays by Václav Havel. Since 2023 she has been working as a freelance translator, cooperating with the Book World book fair in Prague.

Nataliia Tkachyk is a translator from Polish, poet, literary editor of the Nova Polshcha portal. Two-time scholarship holder of the Gaude Polonia Program (2017, 2024). She has translated, in particular, Tadeusz Olszański’s memoirs Once in Stanisławów and Karolina Lanckorońska’s War Memoirs, Tomasz Grzywaczewski’s reportage book The Borders of Dreams.

Iryna Koval was born in Kyiv and has been living in the Netherlands since 2000. Since 2016 she has been successfully engaged in literary translation from Dutch and English. Among her translations there are the most popular Dutch children’s series Dummie the Mummy by Tosca Menten, Alfie the Werewolf by Paul van Loon and The Gorgels by Jochem Myjer.

Alla Tatarenko is a translator, lecturer, literary scholar, literary critic. Doctor of Philology, professor of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Author of more than 90 translations from Serbian and Croatian. She also translates Ukrainian literature into Croatian and Serbian.

Mariana Klymets is a lecturer and translator, Candidate of Philology. She teaches Croatian and the Slovenian language and literature at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, translates from Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian. She researches speculative fiction in Croatian literature.

Maria Hoșciuc. Among her translations from Ukrainian into Romanian there are: Serhiy Zhadan’s  Voroshylovhrad, The Orphanage, Anarchy in the UKR, Depeche Mode, Yurii Andrukhovych’s Recreations, The First Month of the War, Olia Hrebennyk’s Fairy Tales for Children, Yelena Yemchuk’s Malanka.

Olha Soroka is a philologist, the head of the Department of Slavic Philology at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. In 2019 she defended her PhD thesis on the topic: Lexical Innovations of the Foreign Origin in the Modern Bulgarian Language (the End of the 20th – the Beginning of the 21st Century) at the specialized Academic Council of the Potebnia Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA) is networking of emerging literary artists, an international talent development project co-funded by the EU programme Creative Europe. CELA involves young writers and translators from 11 European countries in cooperation through mentoring, masterclasses and meetings. The project aims at providing literary artists, representatives of small languages, with equal conditions to build an international career, to reach an international audience and to develop professional skills. The project is designed for four years and is taking place for the third time.

The CELA project is funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the funding body can be held responsible for them.

Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko are chosen as the curators of the focus theme of the 12th International Book Arsenal Festival, which will be held on May 30-June 2.

Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko are people of great work. Their years-long podcast about culture for Ukrainian listeners and several foreign-language podcasts about Ukraine for a global audience are an invaluable contribution to Ukrainian subjectness. Their articles, books and speeches are very important. However, while inviting them to curate the focus theme, we thought not only about that. We were considering their regular volunteer trips throughout Ukraine, and most of all—to the Ukrainian East and South, that have been going on since the first days of Russian invasion. We were considering what they see, how they comprehend what they have seen, what conclusions they reach. How they, physically feeling the changes in the landscape while driving for a long time, when the Yermolenkos are literally carriers of people, goods and at the same time thoughts, judgments and impressions, summarize them. What does the experience of the edge—being on the edge, approaching the edge, existing on the edge of strength—give to all of us in Ukraine and beyond? I am glad that Tetyana and Volodymyr have accepted this role in Book Arsenal 2024 and have undertaken another piece of work that is important to all of us

— Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, the Director General of the Mystetskyi Arsenal.

Tetyana Ogarkova is a literary scholar, journalist, essayist (the history of French literature, the history of avant-garde and the theory of literature). PhD in Literary Studies (University of Paris-XII Val-de-Marne), senior lecturer of the Department of Literature at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, member of PEN Ukraine. Curator of the project Communication of Ukraine Abroad: Information, Analysis, Storytelling.

Volodymyr Yermolenko is a philosopher, writer and journalist, the president of PEN Ukraine, Doctor of Political Studies (France), Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Docent of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Laureate of the Yurii Sheveliov Prize (2018), the Book of the Year award in various nominations (2018, 2015), the Petro Mohyla Prize (2021). Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko started the Ukrainian-language podcast about culture Kult: Podcast.

Life on the Edge is the focus theme and the main metaphor of the 12th Book Arsenal, that the curators develop in their essay:

A car trip from the bustling capital, which hardly differs from its pre-war version now, to the frontline, where life as we know it ceases to exist, takes only about eight hours…                        

The closer to the frontline, the more rarefied becomes the landscape—fewer people, less movement, less life. A passerby in the street is already an event. An open coffee shop is the center of the emptied-out city block. A military car speeding past you is action. Distant sounds of explosions completely replace the usual sounds of the city. The closer to the frontline, the faster people move between places—here you quickly learn that death always approaches faster than you move away from it. The air itself becomes dangerous.

Who are those who remain here? And who comes and returns again and again?..                            

There, on the edge, people desperately do what they believe in. On the edge, people dare to be what others only consider as their beliefs. To be an embodiment, to stand in the face of evil, upright, holding the rest of the world behind your back. Our common world.

Olena Huseinova, a radio presenter, radio producer, writer, has become the curator of the Literature Program of Book Arsenal 2024.

During Book Arsenal, the Kids and Teens Program will also take place. Its work will be curated by Olha Rusina, a writer, journalist, translator, author of books for kids and teenagers.

The 12th Book Arsenal will host the Literary Festival The Fifth Kharkiv with a special program. This program will be organized in collaboration with the Kharkiv Literary Museum. The program will be curated by Yevhenii Stasinevych, a literary critic, literary scholar, lecturer, curator of art projects.

At this year’s Book Arsenal, PEN Ukraine will present a special program of events for the second time.

Oksana Karpiuk will curate the Professional Program, which will become a platform for industry discussions, exchange of experience and search for successful solutions.

Separate events from publishers will also be presented at Book Arsenal.

The identity of the festival, developed by the team of designers of the Mystetskyi Arsenal headed by Liera Huievska, corresponds to the focus theme and visually interprets the idea of life on the edge. In our imagination, the edge is something concrete, but visually it is ephemeral, because there are no clear-cut edges and borders in nature. Where does it run? On the right, where the battles line forms a new edge? Or inside us, like the pulsating artery that pumps blood and nourishes the whole organism? The new identity of Book Arsenal offers to answer these questions according to one’s own experience and feelings.

Let us remind you that Book Arsenal has announced the dates and format of the 12th festival. Besides, applications for the BOOK ARSENAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM from foreign publishers, rights managers, literary agents and other professionals of the book industry interested in cooperation with Ukraine are being received until March 22.

Book Arsenal is an international event organized by the Mystetskyi Arsenal. The festival has been held since 2011, and has become one of the most influential literary and artistic events in Eastern Europe. In 2019, it won The Literary Festival Award of the International Excellence Awards. The mission of the International Book Arsenal Festival is to create such interactions between people, communities, institutions when the combination of aesthetic experience and intellectual inclusion in the context of a book strengthens the capacity of a person and society.

Book Arsenal is organized in cooperation with Art Arsenal Community NGO. The project is supported by Partnership Fund for Resilient Ukraine (PFRU), funded by aid from the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, the United States of America, Finland, Switzerland, Sweden.

Book Arsenal — 2024 is also held with the financial support of the Ministry of State for Culture and the Media of Germany within the project Exchange between German and Ukrainian Literary and Book Sectors.

The International Book Arsenal Festival, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Ukraine and supported by the German State Ministry for Culture and the Media, announces the winning books of the annual Best Book Design Contest.

This year’s Grand Prix winning book is also the Text Book Nomination winning book. We congratulate Maria Havrysh and Volodymyr Havrysh who created the publication concept, cover design, and illustrations for The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, and also the Babylon Library Publishing House. Book design and layout by Volodymyr Havrysh.

In the Utility Book Nomination, Russian Colonialism by Maksym Eristavi published by ist publishing has become the winning book. Art director — Sergiy Maidukov. Illustrations by Sergiy Maidukov, Alisa Gots, Nikita Kravtsov, Nataliia Kozeko, Danylo Shtangeev, Natasha Steshenko, Ave Libertatemaveamor. Design and layout by Ostap Yashchuk, published by ist publishing.

Jury members decided to reinterpret the Visual Book Nomination as the Art Book Nomination, since, just as in previous years, it is dominated by art publications, albums, photo books, and catalogues. In this Nomination, we congratulate NIKIFOR by Myroslava Mudrak published by RODOVID Publishing House and Ukrainian Museum in New York.

Yelyzaveta Berestova won the Experiment Nomination with her self-published When War Is Coming Home book.

The jury also decided to expand the Kids Book Nomination to the Visual Storytelling Nomination. It allows including any genre of publications that, just like kids books, use visual means to tell the story. We congratulate Blackout. Chronicles of Our Life During Russia’s War Against Ukraine by seri/graph, Anya Ivanenko and Zhenya Polosina in this Nomination. Design — seri/graph studio and Yakaboo publishing.

Best Book Design 2023 Contest Shortlists:

Text Book Nomination:

• Terror from the Air by Peter Sloterdijk, design and layout by Volodymyr Havrysh, ist publishing.
• Ukraine: 50 Symbols of Struggle by Yurii Marchenko, Tetiana Kapustynska, Daria Yakunina, Kateryna Igolkina, Yevhen Skliarenko. Concept, cover design, design, and layout by Valeriia Horodchanina, illustrations by Maria Kinovych, Platfor.ma, Blank Press.

Art Book Nomination:

• Janet Sobel: Wartime by Peter Doroshenko, Alisa Lozhkina. Design by Volodymyr Havrysh, RODOVID Publishing House, Ukrainian Museum in New York.
• Bolnichka by Vladyslav Krasnoshchok. Design by Calin Kruse, editor — Serhii Lebedynskyi. Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography (MOKSOP).
• Flooding by Nikita Kadan and Aliona Karavai, book design and layout by Yaroslava Kovalchuk, Asortymentna kimnata.
• Our Years, Our Words, Our Losses, Our Searches, Our Us (a catalogue for the Jam Factory exhibition), authors and compilers: Borys Filonenko, Kateryna Iakovlenko, Natalia Matsenko. Design, layout, concept — Katya Drozd, ist publishing.

Utility Book Nomination:

• More Than Service by Artur Lupashko. Publication concept by Artur Lupashko and Tetiana Kostina. Cover design and layout by Daria Stetsenko, book design by Tetiana Kostina and Daria Stetsenko, punkt publishing.

Visual Storytelling Nomination:

• A Travel Book. Independent by Iryna Taranenko. Design by Marta Leshak. Knygolove Publishing House.
• Silence! The Rehearsal Is On by Viktor Martyniuk. Design — Oksana Drachkovska, Old Lion Publishing House.

Experiment Nomination:

• Hometown by Ruslana Kliuchko. Design — Ruslana Kliuchko, self-published.
• Dirt 1929 by Petro Holota. Design, concept, illustration idea, and layout by Galya Vergeles. AI programming by Vlad Frolov. Butsia Self-Publishing Initiative.

Best Book Design 2023 Special Honours:

• The jury’s special award for developing indie publishing goes to RISODENTSIA.
• The jury’s special award for the poetry book design goes to Diskursus Publishing House and Yakomoga book by Max Lyzhov. Design by Maryna Dyachenko, Diskursus Publishing House.
• The jury’s special award for the direction that the design approach can lead to goes to The Non-Canon Canon Series by Vikhola Publishing House. Covers by Volodymyr Havrysh, layout by Serhii Zadvornyi, art editor — Victoria Shelest. Vikhola Publishing House. 
• Treasures of the Swedish archives by Maryna Trattner are awarded with the jury’s special award for decent artistic processing of archival materials. Cover and layout by Oleksiy Chekal. Illustrations by Natalia Pavlusenko, FOP Maksymovska Yu. 
• The jury’s special award for developing the periodicals Telegraf. WILL, design by Hlib Kaporikov and Yevhenia Lysenko, Projector publishing.Telegraf. Creativity of the Brave, design by Kaporikov, Anastasia Shyshenok, Yulia Stroi, Roksana Chychuk, and Veronika Sokol, Projector publishing

All photos by Oleksandr Popenko.

The Best Book Design 2023 Contest jury members: Art Studio Agrafka (Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv), Sasha Bychenko, Nadia Kelm, Hlib Kaporikov, Anna Ivanenko, Florian Lamm (Germany), Przemek Dębowskі (Poland).

The Best Book Design Contest is one of the priority projects of the Book Arsenal. We held the contest even in those years when the festival itself was cancelled due to an epidemic or a full-scale war in Ukraine. At the end of 2023, as usual, we celebrate the winners and pay tribute to professionals who create wonderful books, despite all the obstacles and challenges of our time. We believe that this contest, its stability, and its traditions contribute to developing Ukrainian book design, highlighting the state of affairs, trends, and evolution directions, which are important to capture and speak about in professional discussions

— Yuliia Kozlovets, Director of the International Book Arsenal Festival.

For the Goethe-Institut, this contest is a story of long-term partnerships that persist even in the most difficult times and are a symbol of sustainability. This year, the Book Arsenal team, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, is organising the eighth contest. We believe in Ukrainian design. We are happy with the contest results and are motivated to continue on this path

— Fabian Mühlthaler, Director of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine.

What will the Contest winners receive?

The winner of the Grand Prix will receive the main prize of the Contest, the iconic statuette.Finalists and winners of the Contest will represent Ukrainian book design in the “Best Book Design from All over the World” competition organised by the German Buchkunst Foundation. The winning books will also be exhibited at international book fairs in Leipzig and Frankfurt.

The Buchkunst Foundation will invite the author of the most significant contribution to the design of the Grand Prix winning book on a professional trip to Germany in 2024. Publishers whose editions won the contest and winners of special awards will receive tickets to the Frankfurt Book Fair and take part in professional events at the fair.

All publications submitted to the Contest that did not receive awards or special honours will be donated to libraries jointly with PEN Ukraine.

The Contest is held by the International Book Arsenal Festival in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Ukraine. The “Best Book Design 2023” contest takes place with the financial support of the German State Ministry for Culture and the Media.

The project partners — the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Buchkunst Foundation.

Media partners — Telegraf.Design and Chytomo.

The hospitality partner — BURSA.

The longlists for the 2024 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award include the International Book Arsenal Festival, as well as Ukrainian children’s writers Ivan Andrusiak, Halyna Vdovychenko, and Sashko Dermanskyi.

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is a Swedish award for achievements in literature for children and youth, one of the world’s largest awards in the field of children’s literature. The award was established by the Swedish government in 2002 and is awarded annually.

A total of 245 candidates from 68 countries have been nominated for the 2024 award — writers, illustrators, librarians, as well as storytellers and popularizers of reading. Check out the full list of nominees via the link.

The laureate will be announced on 9 April 2024.

For the second time, the International Book Arsenal Festival, the Frankfurter Buchmesse, and the Goethe-Institut Ukraine are organizing the Special Programme for publishers from Ukraine and neighbouring countries at the Frankfurter Buchmesse.

The success of the 2022 Special Programme inspired us, the co-organizers, to continue: this year, the Programme, which is designed to reveal the potential of Ukraine and the neighbouring countries, is taking place for the second time. For the Ukrainian participants, this is, among other things, an opportunity to demonstrate and present themselves as strong partners capable of thinking and acting on a large scale, even in the impossible context of the war. The Book Arsenal is grateful to its German partners for the opportunity to continue supporting our professional publishing community in this way

— says Yuliia Kozlovets, Director of the International Book Arsenal Festival.

Publishers, editors, licence managers, and literary agents from Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary will take part in introductory sessions and seminars by German book market professionals, attend the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2023, and have extensive networking events and opportunities during the fair.

15 participants were selected to participate in this year’s programme which will take place on October 17–20, 9 of them from Ukraine:

• Katheryna Doinychko, Artbooks Publishing House
• Iulia Budnik, Blym-Blym Publishing
• Anna Tiurina, Crocus Publishing LCC
• Anna Labai, KNIGOLOVE LCC
• Roman Skliarov, Nash Format Publisher
• Iryna Oleshko, Nasha Idea
• Larysa Andriievska, Spirit and Litera 
• Bogdana Romantsova, Tempora Publishing House
• Svitlana Bondarenko, Zhorzh

Participants from the neighbouring countries:

• Anna Baghramyan, Armenia, ARI Literary and Talent Agency
• David Kakabadze, Georgia, Siesta
• Eszter Kovacs, Hungary, Pagony Kiadó
• Magdalena Debowska, Poland, Wydawnictwo Karakter
• Liliana Duta, Romania, Publica Com
• Ján Gavura, Slovak Republic, FACE

The Programme was launched in 2022 and is being held for the second time this year. 

The Programme is subject to financial support by the German Federal Foreign Office.