‘Cassandra’: rehearsed reading & conversation with translator
Date and time:
Tuesday 1 March, 2022
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
This event will be going ahead. Lesia Ukrainka's work celebrates the indomitable human spirit - the same ineradicable, uncompromising commitment to truth in the face of obfuscation and justice in the face of oppression that will ensure the victory of the Ukrainian people.
First published in 1908, Lesia Ukrainka’s poetic drama Cassandra is a pioneering feminist retelling of the Trojan war, written from the perspective of the tragic prophetess. Today, marking the play’s 115th anniversary, we celebrate Nina Murray’s fresh new translation of this monumental work, which won the Ukrainian Institute London’s 2021 Ukrainian literature in translation prize.
Poet and translator Nina Murray will be in conversation with writer and scholar Dr Sasha Dovzhyk to discuss her new translation and Lesia Ukrainka’s legacy as a groundbreaking feminist writer of fin-de-siecle modernism. The conversation will be interspersed with extracts from Nina Murray’s translation, performed by professional actors.
This event is held in partnership with the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.
Speaker
Nina Murray
Nina Murray was born and raised in the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv. She holds advanced degrees in linguistics and creative writing. She is the author of the poetry collection Alcestis in the Underworld (Circling Rivers Press, 2019) as well as chapbooks Minimize Considered (Finishing Line Press, 2018), Minor Heresies (Heartland Review Press, 2020), and Damascus Electric (Pen & Anvil Press, 2020). Her translations from Russian and Ukrainian include Peter Aleshkovsky’s Stargorod, Oksana Zabuzhko’s Museum of Abandoned Secrets, and Oksana Lutsyshyna’s Ivan and Phoebe (forthcoming from Deep Vellum).
Speaker
Sasha Dovzhyk
Sasha Dovzhyk is a Ukrainian writer and scholar based in London. She holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Birkbeck, University of London. She co-edited a volume of Aubrey Beardsley’s Decadent Writings, and has written on topics as diverse as the legacies of Chernobyl and transnational decadent aesthetics for various publications, including The Ecologist, British Art Studies, and Hong Kong Review of Books. She featured as an expert on Lesia Ukrainka in the Ukrainian Institute London’s short film Fin de Siècle Ukrainian Feminism, and Sasha also works with the Institute as the Curator of Special Projects (Ukraine Lab and London Ukrainian Review).
