Tatsiana Niadbai

Tatsiana Niadbai is a poetess, translator, and human rights defender. She has translated books by Ewa M. Thompson and co-translated books by Leszek Kołakowski, Anna Buzhynska and Mikhail Pavel Markovsky. She has managed cultural, human rights and media projects. In 2017–2019, she chaired the Belarusian PEN Center, and since 2019 she has served as the First Deputy of the Chairwoman of the Belarusian PEN Svetlana Alexievich.

Laureate of the Debut Award (2015) for a collection of poetry titled Sirens Sing Jazz (2014).

A book of Iya Kiva’s interviews “We will wake up different: conversations with contemporary Belarusian writers about the past, present and future of Belarus” (2021, Knyhy–XXI) will be presented at the Book Arsenal; Tatsiana Niadbai is one of the book’s heroes.

Nicolas Werth — historian, scholar of communist studies. He has worked as a teacher in secondary schools in France and abroad. Since 1989, has been working at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Head of Memorial-France (the French branch of the International Memorial), member of the International Memorial Board.

Author of the chapters dedicated to the USSR in “The Black Book of Communism”. Productively cooperates with Ukrainian historians. Author of one of the most famous textbooks on the history of the USSR: “Історія Радянської держави. 1900–1991. Навчальний посібник”. 

At the Book Arsenal, Nicolas Werth will be presenting his latest book published in France (not yet translated into Ukrainian) — “Les grandes famines soviétiques” (PUF, 2020).

Miglė Anušauskaitė is a comics artist and a researcher in the Judaica Research Center of the National Library of Lithuania. She has written and drawn many comics about literature, science and history, among them — an award-winning graphic novel on Greimassian semiotics, presently being adapted into an animation movie.

Her very first book, co-authored with Gerda Jord, received a Patriots’ award in 2014. She is now in the process of making two comic books about historical Lithuanians. Her comics were exhibited in collective exhibitions in Paris, Italy, the Netherlands, the Lithuanian National Art Gallery and others.

At the Book Arsenal, as a part of Special teen program “Just Curious What Will Be in The End”, Miglė Anušauskaitė will be participating in the discussion “We until now: common and individual history in Lithuanian and Ukrainian comic books” and holding a comic book workshop for teenagers.

Judith Schifferle is an independent writer and culture manager. In 2011, she defended a dissertation on German-speaking poet from Bukovyna region Moses Rozenkranz. In 2006–2007, she was a lecturer in Robert Bosch Stiftung in Uzhgorod and conducted cultural tours of western Ukraine and Poland.

At the Book Arsenal, Judith Schifferle will be participating in the presentation of an anthology of German-language poetry from Switzerland.

Jan Wenzel is an editor, writer and artist. In 2001, he co-founded Spector Books publishing house. As an author and editor he has collaborated on numerous book projects.

His book “Das Jahr 1990 freilegen” was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2020 and received the Stiftung Buchkunst Prize. In 2021, it was awarded the gold medal in the competition Best Book Design from all over the World.

At the Book Arsenal, Jan Wenzel will be presenting his book “Das Jahr 1990 freilegen”. Also, as a part of the book design program “Interfaces of Optimism” he will be participating in expert discussion and holding 2 workshops.

Aušra Kiudulaitė is an illustrator, writer, and picture book maker. Her debut picture book “Laimė yra lapė” (The Fox on the Swing), co-authored with Evelina Daciūtė, has already reached young readers in Slovenia, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, South Korea and other countries. Her newest book “Max and 92 flies”, published in 2020, is her first solo (as a writer and illustrator) project.

The book has won many national and international awards, including the first prize of the Batchelder Award (the most exceptional book published in the USA) of year 2019. Aušra’s works has also been selected for the Illustration exhibition at Bologna Children’s book fair in 2017. 

At the Book Arsenal, Aušra Kiudulaitė will be presenting her book “Laimė yra lapė” translated into Ukrainian (published by Chorni Vivtsi in 2020, translated by Volodyslav Zhurba). 

Petr Bankov is a poster artist. In 2004–2010 he was a professor at the Higher School of Graphic Design in Moscow. Founder of the NEUCH project (“unrecorded number”), Design Depot design studio and KAK design magazine. Bankov’s works belong to the permanent collections of the MoMA Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, USA), the Klingspor Museum (Offenbach, Germany), the MOTI and Stedelijk Museum — the City Museum of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Les Arts Décoratifs (France), the La Poste Museum (Finland) etc.

He is a winner of more than 200 international awards. Étapes: magazine recognized him as one of the ten personalities of modern graphic design, “whose influence changed the visual culture of the first decade of the XXI century” (Paris, France, 2014).

At the Book Arsenal, as a part of the book design program “Interfaces of Optimism”, Petr Bankov will be holding a workshop “Book cover as a poster and visual hawk.”

Otar Karalashvili is a book artist, designer, curator, head of the Book Art Center in Tbilisi, professor at the International School of Design (Technical University of Georgia).

He worked as a researcher at universities in Georgia, Germany and Japan. In the mid-1990s, he and his friends founded Diogenes, one of the first independent publishing houses in Georgia. He was one of the initiators of the Georgian Publishers Association, curator of the Georgian stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Since 2009, he has been teaching graphic design, book design and illustration at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts and at the Free University of Tbilisi. In 2012, he established the Book Art Center in Tbilisi. In 2014, he founded the Tbilisi Book Days International Book Art Festival, which he managed until 2017. Curator of numerous exhibitions of Georgian book art, including international festivals in Georgia, Germany, Russia, Italy and Ukraine.

At the Book Arsenal, as a part of the book design program “Interfaces of Optimism”, Otar Karalashvili will be giving a non-scientific lecture on typographic style and politics “Let’s read by letters”.

Amélie E. Cochet is an animation artist and illustrator. Has a degree in animation 2D (HSLU Design & Kunst, Lucerne, 2019). Since February 2021, she’s been teaching the course “Animated narration” at the school of visual arts in Biel/Bienne. Co-founder of the creative collective “Studio PIAF” in Bern. Working on animated films, commissioned projects, music-videos, comics and so on.

At the Book Arsenal, Amélie E. Cochet will be giving a lecture “Moving pictures — between the animation and the illustration” organized by Swiss Embassy in Ukraine.

Dan Agheorghicesei is a Romanian publisher, head of the publishing house Lidana in Suceava. Lidana Publishing House publishes textbooks in the Ukrainian language and literature for the Ukrainian diaspora in Romania.

At the Book Arsenal, Dan Agheorghicesei will be taking part in the discussion «“Lidana”—“Bookrek”: following Romanian-Ukrainian literature paths» organized by Bookrek Publishing House.