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Please join the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute for Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love – An Evening with Writer Volodymyr Rafeyenko. Moderated by Mark Andryczyk (Harriman Institute), who translated Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love into English.

“True to its title, Rafeyenko’s Mondegreen is a tapestry of Soviet rock lyrics, traditional folk ballads, the poems of Taras Shevchenko, and contemporary literary memes, all filtered through the ears of a Ukrainian language learner… … Mondegreen is truly indulgent, a lyrical celebration of words and their power, not just to express but to transform.”—Lillian Posner, Los Angeles Review of Books

Volodymyr Rafeyenko is an award-winning Ukrainian writer, poet, translator, and literary and film critic. Although he initially wrote and published in Russian, his novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love was his first written in Ukrainian. It was nominated for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine’s highest award in arts and culture. Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Volodymyr Korolenko Prize for the novel Brief Farewell Book and the Visegrad Eastern Partnership Literary Award for the novel The Length of Days.