Lyuba Yakimchuk

Lyuba Yakimchuk is a Ukrainian poet, playwright, screenwriter, and performance artist, among other things. 

Yakimchuk grew up in Pervomaisk, Luhansk in the east of Ukraine. In 2011 she graduated from the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with a Master’s degree in Theory, History of Literature and Comparative Studies. The literary scholar Polina Barskova has described her use of language as one of the most daring in contemporary Ukrainian poetry and she has been named one of the one hundred most influential people in the arts in Ukraine by the magazine The New Voice of Ukraine. 

Yakimchuk has published two books of poetry: Like FASHION in 2009 and Apricots of Donbas in 2015. The latter was written in the first years of the Russian war on Ukraine and received the the International Poetic Award of the Kovalev Foundation in New York. In the collection, Yakimchuk experiments and plays with words and language, reflecting the sound of war. As she says, language is only as beautiful or shattered as the world that surrounds it – a world whose historical events influence the way people use that language. The French edition of Apricots of Donbas (Les Abricots du Donbas, 2023) was shortlisted for the Prix Mallarmé and published as an audiobook, which was voiced by renowned French actress Catherine Deneuve. Yakimchuk has received several awards for her poetic work, including the Smoloskyp Prize in 2008 and the International Slavic Poetic Award in 2013. In dedication to Ukraine Lyuba Yakimchuk performed her poem Prayer as part of John Legend’s Free at the 2022 Grammy Awards. 

Yakimchuk’s poetry has been translated into more than twenty-five languages, including English, Hebrew, Estonian, Swedish, and Japanese, and has been published in magazines and news outlets worldwide, including the New York Times and BBC. Furthermore, she has been recognized for her work as a screenwriter and has participated in musical and poetic projects across Europe.