I was born in the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia in the South-East of Ukraine three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. What followed was a learning curve. After nine years in London, I went back to Ukraine and set up a new cultural and research institution in Lviv, INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange. Member of PEN Ukraine.
I used to write on topics as diverse as the legacies of Chornobyl and Victorian decadence. Since 2022, I have been covering Ukraine's resistance to Russia's aggression. My words are in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, New Lines Magazine, CNN, and others. I have finished a book of testimonies stylised as fairy tales.
I am the head of INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange, an institution launched in Lviv in 2024. Facilitating the production of situated knowledge about Ukraine in global contexts, INDEX pursues justice – not confined to the sort of justice that the legal system can provide, but also encompassing historical and epistemic justice as stories are told and passed on.
In 2021-23, I was a special projects curator for the UIL. I curated a writing residency Ukraine Lab and an online course Literatura. I keep editing the London Ukrainian Review (LUR), published by the UIL in partnership with INDEX.
I regularly give public talks, interviews, and moderate events on the topics of Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion and Ukrainian traditions of resistance.
I gained a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Birkbeck (University of London), taught at Birkbeck and UCL SSEES, and published in peer-reviewed journals before parting with academia.