Book Arsenal 2022 in Kyiv was cancelled

The International Book Arsenal Festival will not take place in May 2022 because of russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the event organizers have announced. 

«The brave Ukrainian people are defending the country, repulsing the enemy’s aggression on various fronts, and we all realise that we still need time for the decisive victory. Now, in wartime, our team is working to support the publishing industry as well as the literary and artistic scene in Ukraine, and to support our community», – the Book Arsenal team said in their statement.

The festival organizers’ activities are now focused on three areas:  

• informing the international book community about the russia-Ukraine war, developing a coalition of cultural institutions to boycott russian culture product and business, and communicating the opportunities to help victims of the war, especially migrant and displaced children, publishers, and translators.
• In cooperation with colleagues from Literary Laboratory, they have already implemented the final event of the Ukraine-Scotland: Collaborative Literary Project –Translation in Focus: Beyond Any Curtain – adjusting it to the requirements of wartime; together with the Mystetskyi Arsenal Education Department, they have launched a teenage project Antytvir 2022; and are also working on a number of other program ideas;
• They have transformed Ukrainian Literature: Rights On! Project in accordance with the new conditions. Now it is aimed at distributing the catalogues of Ukrainian publishers abroad. 

«We have managed to establish quick and effective communication with numerous book fairs all over the world. The members of our team, as a part of a working group of relevant cultural institutions, have already organised Ukraine’s participation with a manifesto stand at the Bologna Book Fair (March 21-24), as well as at the London Book Fair (April 5-7)», – said the festival organizers.  

The members of the festival team are also participating in international events as guest speakers. These events include the Board Meeting of European Network for Literary Translation (ENLIT), Caucasus and Black Sea Basin Countries’ Regional Publishing Conference, etc. 

«Now our activities are aimed at preserving the institution and the team, and therefore – at supporting the book and its audience; we are working for our victory. And after our victory, the team will return to the activities we love and are good at: we will organise and hold the 11th Book Arsenal, with its unique atmosphere of freedom of expression, discussions, meetings of authors and their readers, and warm hugs under the peaceful sky in the Old Arsenal yard», – the festival organizers stressed. 

The Book Arsenal was planned to take place on May 25-29 and the focus theme was to be «The Migration Period».