Book Launch of Samchuk’s “Maria” and other Ukrainian Literature in English Translation

Upon retirement in 1996, Prof. Roma Franko’s mission statement became making Ukrainian literature accessible to an English-speaking audience. She thus embarked on a career translating and publishing works by Ukrainian authors. For many years, her sister Sonia Morris edited the translations. Together, Franko and Morris (posthumously) were the inaugural recipients of the Canadian Foundation of Ukrainian Studies’ George S. N. Luckyj Ukrainian Literature Translation Prize in 2009. Roma Franko’s nephew Paul Cipywnyk has been editing the translations in recent years.

At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 29, 2012, at St. Vladimir Institute in Toronto, a book launch will be held for six newly translated books by Dr. Roma Franko. The prolific translator will thus be bringing her 21st book to the English-language reader. 

The multiple book launch will include the translation of Ulas Samchuk’s 1934 classic Maria - the first literary work about one of the most tragic periods in human history - the 1932-33 Holodomor Famine-Genocide in Ukraine. It is a gripping story about a woman’s loves, losses and a powerful characterization of village life’s daily toil from the time of emancipation of serfs in 1861.

Trilogy: Desperate Times is comprised of three books: Brother Against Brother; Between the Trenches; and Conflict and Chaos which include stories by 18 authors that explore the human side of the social, political and economic upheaval in Ukraine from the tumultuous opening days of the 20th century, through WWI, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and into the early 1920s under Soviet rule.

Lastly, two anthologies - From Days Gone By and Down Country Lanes include stories from the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries that focus on class tensions, gender and ethnic inequalities, and abuse of authority. 

The book launch will include remarks by Oksana Bryzhun-Sokolyk (Maria), Paul Cipywnyk (Trilogy: Desperate Times); and Roma Franko, Ph.D. (From Days Gone By; and Down Country Lanes).

Vsevolod Sokolyk

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Dr. Roma Franko