Valieriy Puzik

Valerii Puzik is a Ukrainian artist, writer, director, and soldier. He was born in 1987 in the village of
Telizhyntsi, approximately 40 miles southwest of Kyiv. His paintings and artwork have been shown
internationally in exhibits and museums, and he is the author of many award-winning books.
He volunteered for the front in Donbas in 2015, taking part in the fighting as a member of a battalion in
the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps of the Right Sector. He continues to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Homeless Dogs (2018) and Monolith (2018) are collections of his short prose. I Saw Him Alive, Dead and
Alive Again (2020) was one of the top 20 Ukrainian prose books of 2020 according to Ukrainian PEN.
Mine. Morning Report (2021) is a documentary novel and collection of poems written between 2015 and
2020 about experiences in the volunteer corps of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense. Delphi and the Wizards
(2021) is a fantasy children’s book.
Puzik collaborated on a short documentary film, Ceasefire, showing apocalyptic landscapes in the
Donetsk region after the devastation of the early days of war when a ceasefire was announced in eastern
Ukraine on February 15, 2015. The film received a special jury prize at the Palm of the North (Palma
piwnoci) national documentary competition in 2016. IS THIS CORRECT FESTIVAL NAME? I DO NOT
FIND IN GOOGLE. Other documentaries and videos have been screened at festivals in Ukraine and
Germany. He wrote the screenplay for Trench, a TV miniseries based on real experiences of Ukrainian
soldiers in Donbas. A full-length feature film, Our Cats, was subsequently created on the basis of the
miniseries.
Valeriy Puzik’s video poetry Farewell Among the Stars (with texts by Oksana Zabushko) was screened at
the opening of the Read My World festival in Amsterdam in 2016, and featured in the main program of
the 5th Odessa Zone of Turbulence Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2017. His poetry has appeared in
anthologies, and he has worked as a journalist for online media and newspapers. He has won numerous
literary prizes, including the Olesya Ulyanenko Literary Prize.
Ghosts in Branches was Puzik’s first full-length dramatic work. It won the Eurodrama-2024 competition
(Ukrainian committee), and was shortlisted at July Honey-2024, Contemporary Play Week-2024, and the
European Theater Against War (TAW) competition-2024.
He lives in Odesa.