Why is it important to publish books during a full-scale war and has there emerged a demand for Ukrainian literature abroad

In her column, Olena Orliuk, the Head of the Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations, Doctor of Legal Sciences, Professor of the Intellectual Property and Information Law Department of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, reflects on why the book remains important for culture, and book publishing needs to be supported in times of war.

Now, as never before, the Ukrainian book has become an essential part of our cultural diplomacy. And there are all prerequisites for this, because only in the first year of the great war, the demand for Ukrainian literature abroad almost doubled. The reason for such popularity is not only a full-scale invasion: behind it are years of systematic and persistent work by publishers, authors and institutions. Who is behind the creation of quality Ukrainian content today?

International activity of Ukrainian publishing houses

The full-scale invasion was a big trauma for Ukrainian business – and the publishing industry, which at the turn of 2021-2022 was just beginning to recover from the consequences of the global pandemic, is no exception. During the first year of a full-scale invasion, the total number of published books and pamphlets decreased by 50.5% compared to the previous year. However, this industry quite quickly experienced what is called "post-traumatic growth" in psychology.?

Already in 9 months after the full-scale invasion, 85.9% of publishing houses resumed their activities completely, and 14.1% – partially. New subjects of the publishing business began to appear: if in 2022 152 subjects were entered into the State Register of Publishers, Manufacturers and Distributors of Publishing Products, then in 2023 this number increased to 302. The number of printed units and circulations also increased – by 73% and 203%, respectively.

But it is even more interesting to follow the strengthening of the trend that existed in the work of publishing houses before a full-scale invasion, namely, active access to European and world markets. Of course, some of the books are aimed at Ukrainian refugees, among whom there is a consistently high demand for Ukrainian literature.

However, direct interest from foreigners is an equally important factor – as a result, already in April 2022, three quarters of domestic publishers either planned or already had established cooperation with international colleagues.

This is about opening foreign branches, updating existing and preparing new catalogs of rights to the works of Ukrainian authors, concluding contracts for electronic content, arranging Ukrainian shelves in foreign bookstores, and participating in international events. So, together with the work done in this direction in previous years, the efforts finally bore fruit: during 2022, foreigners bought the rights to more than 230 books of our compatriots.

This shows an almost two-fold increase compared to the figure of the previous year, which was 120 works. If we talk about the leaders in the sale of rights among publishing houses, these are The Old Lion Publishing House (67 licenses), Ranok (52 licenses) and Vivat (40 licenses).

And this really testifies to the high quality of domestic literature – despite the growing interest in Ukraine in connection with the active coverage of the Ukrainian-Russian War in the global media, the world book market in any case remains a very competitive environment, and publishers select books accordingly to their interests and publishing portfolio.

And if earlier signing a contract for the publication of a work abroad was considered an extraordinary success for us, now more and more foreign publishers and international agents want to have Ukrainians in their catalogs.

Support programs

In 2022, both grant programs for the translation of Ukrainian works, which existed at that time, have not been launched – we are talking about Translate Ukraine from the Ukrainian Book Institute (whose funds were directed to the defense sector) and the programme from the House of Europe.

It is worth noting that the grants issued in previous years became an important factor that influenced the high results of the sale of rights to Ukrainian books in 2022: it takes about a year to complete the translation, so part of the sold works were translated within the framework of the implementation of applications that won earlier.

Fortunately, already in 2023, both opportunities have been renewed – what's more, both the amount of grants and the number of supported applicants have increased.

Another important programme aimed at popularizing domestic books abroad is The Ukrainian Literature: Rights On! from The International Book Arsenal Festival with the support of the House of Europe and the Chytomo media project. It consists of an educational and information-analytical component and helps Ukrainian publishers navigate legal, customs, marketing and strategic issues of interaction with foreign partners. What's more, the initiative's website contains a selection of domestic publishing houses along with catalogs of their rights, which makes it much easier for foreign agents and publishing houses to familiarize themselves with the offer on the Ukrainian market.

By the way, this is not the only source of this type: at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, on the initiative of the Ukrainian Publishers and Booksellers Association, the first joint Copyright Catalog in six volumes was published.

For the IP Office, supporting our publishing industry is also one of the priority areas of activity. In particular, we recently signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Ukrainian Book Institute, within which we plan, among other things, to protect the rights of publishers, writers and illustrators when they enter European markets and help them obtain grants from international organizations.

One of the first results was a round table organized by us together with the Ukrainian Book Institute on counterfeiting in book publishing, which took place on April 23 during the Ukrainian Intellectual Property Week and was dedicated to World Book and Copyright Day. In addition, based on the results of a webinar for book publishers and authors, also held with the participation of the Ukrainian Book Institute, the IP Office presented a new manual with recommendations on copyright – it will be useful to everyone involved in book publishing in Ukraine.

Who tops the lists

According to the results of last year, modern Ukrainian prose remains the most interesting for foreign publishers. Our classics, non-fiction books, and children's and teenage publications were translated and published abroad a little less.

If we talk about the most popular Ukrainian writers, Andrii Kurkov holds the top prize in fiction – 12 of his books were published outside of Ukraine in 2023. Special mention should be made of the novel “Grey Bees,” which was not only included in the list of the best books of 2022 according to The New Yorker, but also won a number of prestigious awards, including the American Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, Quebec Booksellers’ Award and the Athens Prize for the best foreign novel.

It is also worth mentioning Serhiy Zhadan, well-known abroad since the publication of his novel “Voroshilovgrad” in 2011. Accordingly, the result of 2023 is the publication of five prose books in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Spain and Sweden (by the way, the last three translations were carried out under the Translate Ukraine grant programme).

In turn, Oksana Zabuzhko published four fiction books last year – but I would also like to note her collection of essays “The Longest Journey,” written specifically for the Western public to better understand the realities of the Ukrainian-Russian War. It was for the translation of this book into Polish that the scientist Katarzyna Kotynska received the Drahomán Prize-2023 – an award for translators from the Ukrainian language into world languages, established in 2020 by the Ukrainian Institute, the PEN Ukraine and the Ukrainian Book Institute.

If we return to Ukrainian fiction popular abroad, I will mention a few more important names: Yurii Andrukhovych, Iren Rozdobudko, Andrii Lyubka, Olena Styazhkina, Sofia Andrukhovych, Oleksandr Mykhed. Among the poets are Julia Stakhivska, Victoria Amelina, Pavlo Korobchuk, Bohdan-Oleh Horobchuk, Lyubov Yakymchuk, Halyna Kruk, Oleh Lysheha and, again, Serhiy Zhadan, whose poems are published both individually and in anthologies.

Similarly, in anthologies, foreigners get acquainted with Ukrainian non-fiction – in particular, it is about a collection of essays about the war called “Ukraine 22: Ukrainian Writers Respond to War,” written by Sofia Andrukhovych, Oleksandr Boychenko, Yurii Andrukhovych, Andrij Bondar, Olena Huseinova, Taras Prokhasko, Volodymyr Rafeenko, Olena Styazhkina and Iryna Tsilyk. Also, in the non-fiction category, I cannot fail to mention the book "Ukrainer. The Country from the Inside," whose English-language version topped the Hot New Releases in History of Ukraine on Amazon, and another popular publication on the same resource, "Ukraine. Food and History" by the ?zhakultura project.

Works for children should not be overlooked too. Firstly, it is worth noting "Who Will Make the Snow" by Maryana and Taras Prokhasko, which was included in the rating of the best books for children and teenagers in 2023 by The New York Times.

Other children's writers translated into foreign languages include Ivan Malkovych, Oksana Bula, Kateryna Yegorushkina, Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv. By the way, domestic children's book is quite actively promoted abroad – this is evidenced by the fact that 20 publishing houses represented Ukraine with a national stand at the recent Bologna Children's Book Fair.

So, as we can see, interest in Ukrainian books abroad is not abating. However, in order not only to maintain it at the proper level, but also to strengthen it, it is important to offer really high-quality and competitive products. And this requires both state support programs and coordinated cooperation of state institutions, professional associations, publishing businesses, literary agents and, in fact, authors. Because we are all working on a matter of primary importance – building the cultural image of Ukraine as a creative and intellectual state. And the success of this matter depends only on our efforts.