Exploring Ukrainian Drama Through Translation
The digital library of Ukrainian Drama Translations seeks to promote national drama worldwide, enhance communication between Ukrainian authors and theatres around the globe, and cultivate new creative partnerships. A convenient search engine will help you find plays by Ukrainian playwrights translated into your chosen language, allowing you to search by genre, period of creation, subject, text length, number of characters, and more. Each text in the library includes an ID card, a synopsis, and information about the author and translator in English. In the library, you can read extensive excerpts of most texts. However, to access the full text for reading, commercial, or non-commercial use, you will need to contact the copyright holders. Their contact information is available on the first page of the play and in the authors' profiles. The open structure promotes the continuous renewal of the library’s collection. Ukrainian playwrights are encouraged to submit translations of their plays using this form this form.
Meet the Team Behind Ukrainian Drama Translations
Dmytro Ternovyi
As a co-founder of Theatre na Zhukakh in Kharkiv and initiator of Ukrainian Drama Translations, Dmytro has led over 20 projects, including several international initiatives. With expertise in project management, he handles contractual work, organizes internal team communications, manages external communication with grantors, and oversees reporting and representative functions.
Iryna Harets
Iryna is a playwright, co-founder and co-director of the Theatre of Playwrights, bringing experience from over 15 similar projects. She serves as the project coordinator, liaises with playwriting competitions and authors, and fulfills representative functions.
Anna Halas
Anna is a playwright, theatre translator, and researcher, as well as the initiator of the Theatre Translation Lab. She curates the project's international communications, organizes the Steshenko Theatre Translation Competition, and manages the Ukrainian Drama Translations library. Additionally, she promotes the library to foreign audiences and serves as the editor-in-chief of its information and review sections.
Valentyna Tuzhyna
Valentyna is a theatre expert and journalist with over 12 years of experience in communications. She manages the Ukrainian Drama Translations library, disseminates information in professional groups, publishes in the media, communicates with authors and translators, and represents the project in various capacities.
Nadia Sokolenko
Nadia is the Program Manager at the Ukrainian Institute. She supports communication with authors and translators and manages the library of Ukrainian Drama Translations.
Meet our Key Partners
John Freedman is the initiator and principal translator behind the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings project. This initiative ensures that works by Ukrainian playwrights, especially those written after Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, are promptly translated into English, German, Slovak, Romanian, French, and other languages for presentation to global audiences. These readings involve foreign actors and directors across a variety of theaters. The Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings gave rise to the award-winning book "A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War: 20 Short Works by Ukrainian Playwrights" (2022 & 2023, second edition).
Nina Kamberos is the founder and editor-in-chief of Laertes, a literary translation press based in Chapel Hill (USA). The debut publication, "Clearing the Ground: C.P. Cavafy, Poetry and Prose, 1902-1911," was released in October 2015 and garnered IPPY and PubWest awards for its exceptional book design. Currently, Nina actively working on Egret Acting Editions, a series featuring "engaged and provocative dramas from across the world." The series includes "Ghost Land" by Andriy Bondarenko (translated from Ukrainian by John Freedman and Vladyslav Hetmanenko) and "A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War" (20 Short Works by Ukrainian Playwrights) (translated by John Freedman, Natalia Bratus, John Farndon and Evgenia Kovryga). The collection was included in The Telegraph's list of the TOP 50 best books of the year (2023) and won an IPPY award (2024), a prestigious independent publishers' contest, receiving a bronze medal in the Current Events: Social Issues, Humanitarian category.
Meet our Leading Translators
Lydia Nagel, born in Wismar, has studied Slavonic and Cultural Studies. After her studies, she managed an internship program for Ukrainian and Belarusian students and taught at the University of Vienna, Department of Slavonic Studies, for three years. Nowadays, she lives in Berlin as a freelance translator from various Slavonic languages, translating mainly contemporary prose and drama. She is a founding member of Drama Panorama: Forum for Translation and Theatre. In 2014, she was a fellow of the Berlin Translator’s Workshop at the Literary Colloquium Berlin. In 2016, she was awarded a working grant at the Künstlerhaus Lukas and the Germersheim translator’s grant at the Künstlerhaus Edenkoben, in 2017 a working grant at the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf and several grants by the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds (German Translation Fund) in 2017-2022.
John Farndon is an accomplished author, translator, and poet. He was the joint winner of the European Bank Literary Prize in 2019 for his translation of Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov’s "The Devil’s Dance" and a finalist for the US PEN Translation Award in 2020 for his translation of Kazakh author Rollan Seisenbayev’s "The Dead Wander in the Desert." Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has translated more than 25 Ukrainian plays for the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Reading Project.
The Library's Founders and Partnerships
The Library was initially founded by the Ukrainian Institute in partnership with Worldwide Readings Project and Birkbeck Center for Contemporary Theater. The website was created with financial support from the International Relief Fund of the Federal Foreign Office and Goethe-Institut Ukraine, within framework of the Theatrical Windows. Work in Progress, a project implemented by the NGO Theatre na Zhukah. The coordinating partners are the platforms UkrDramaHub and Theatre Translation Lab.