‘Enchanted Desna,’ ‘Radio Night,’ ‘The Gaze of Medusa’: New English translations in 2026

At least 10 books by Ukrainian writers are set to be published in English in 2026. According to the Ukrainian Book Institute, eight of them are supported by the Translate Ukraine program.

The list spans contemporary voices—Yuri Andrukhovych, Artur Dron, Lyubko Deresh, Khrystia Vengryniuk and Borys Khersonsky—as well as classics, including Viktor Domontovych, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Vasyl Stus, and Sofiia Yablonska, alongside an anthology of Ukrainian modernist poetry.

New York Review Books is set to publish Andrukhovych’s novel “Radio Night,” translated by Mark Andryczyk. The novel “tells the story of Yosyp Rotsky, a legendary piano player who took part in a revolution in defense of dignity as a barricade pianist. On the run from both his country’s shady Regime and the insatiable Mob, Rotsky and his pal, the wise raven Edgar, traverse the repurposed labyrinths of bygone eras, stumbling upon vestiges of the ever-present past and maneuvering through today’s social media-saturated world.” In Ukraine, “Radio Night” was published by Meridian Czernowitz. The book is expected to be released on November 17 of this year.

Jantar Publishing in the UK will release Arthur Dron’s book “Hemingway Knows Nothing,” translated by Hanna Leliv. It is a collection of short stories that portray a soldier’s personal experiences during the full-scale invasion. The book was originally published by the Old Lion Publishing House.

Another British publication on the list is Domontovych’s “Dr. Seraphikus,” which is set to be published by Dedalus Limited. This experimental 1929 novel centers on the eccentric Professor Komaha, exploring his friendship with Irtsia and his platonic fascinations with Ver and Korvin, all set against the Constructivist-era Kyiv of the 1920s. Among current Ukrainian editions, the novel was published by Osnovy and Vivat.

In the United States, Lost Horse Press will publish Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s “The Enchanted Desna,” translated by Dzvinia Orlowsky and Ali Kinsella. It is an autobiographical cinematic novel about Dovzhenko’s childhood near the Desna River.

The same American publisher is also preparing a collection of Vasyl Stus’s poetry titled “Vortex: Selected Poems.” This volume will span more than a decade of his early work, from his earliest writings to the period leading up to Stus’s arrest by the KGB in 1972. Bohdan Tokarsky and Nina Murray are working on the translation. Another book announced by Lost Horse Press is “Queen Saturday”—the first bilingual collection of Ukrainian verse by Borys Khersonsky, translated by Svetlana Lavochkina & Oksana Rosenblum.

Academic Studies Press is preparing two more English-language translations in the U.S. The first is Lyubko Deresh’s “The Gaze of Medusa” which will be issued under the name “Medusa Gaze. Little Book of Darkness.” In Ukraine, the book was published in 2024 by Anetta Antonenko Publishing House.

The second project from Academic Studies Press is “From the Land of Rice and Opium” by Yablonska, which will be published in English. In Ukraine, the current edition by Vikhola publisher was published in 2025, with the text based on the 2018 edition of Rodovid.

An anthology titled “The Ukrainian Modernist Poems: A Lost Anthology” will also be published, to be released by Lost Horse Press. Ostap Kin is working on it.

“The Hamlet Called America” by Khrystia Vengryniuk will be published by Sandorf Passage this spring. In this novel, Vengryniuk portrays a largely isolated village populated by “eccentric characters” living, loving, and losing together. She creates a metaphor for the “pitfalls of contemporary national isolationism”—one that resonates with the political tensions shaping not only the United States, but the wider world. The book is translated by Kate Tsurkan and Dmytro Kyyan.

The catalogue of translations published within the Translate Ukraine program is available here.

RELATED: 13 Ukrainian books to be translated into English this year as part of the Translate Ukraine Program

Main image: Chytomo collage

Copyediting: Ben Angel