Summarizing the memories of my long life, I see that it has always been directed toward Ukraine, that, being outside my homeland’s borders for most of my life, Ukraine was such an intense part of me as if we had never parted…
Vira Vovk
Vira Vovk (real lastname Selianska) was a Ukrainian writer, literary critic, translator, and scholar from Brazil, a full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts Sciences (UVAN) and the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) in New York, and a laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize.
Vira Vovk was born on January 2, 1926, in Boryslav, Lviv region. She only lived in her homeland for ten years. The family was forced to emigrate at the beginning of the Second World War. They lived in Germany for ten years. Vira studied at the Clara Schumann Girls’ School (Dresden, 1941-1945). At that time, she realized that she had to represent her people and introduce the culture of Ukraine to the host country. She studied at the Tübingen University (1945-1949) and was the only one of the applicants to receive a scholarship. She studied Germanic studies, Slavic studies, and musicology.
Then, she and her mother moved to Brazil via France. Vira Vovk recalled, “We had no idea about the country we were moving to. My mother imagined it as an undefined Eldorado, and I hoped to find peace and a favorable environment for my work there.” The writer was destined to live in sunny Brazil for over 70 years. She was a professor at various Brazilian universities. In 1959, during a trip to the United States, she met members of the New York Group of poets, and in 1965, during her first visit to Ukraine after emigration, she met the Ukrainian Sixties (unofficial art movement of the 1960s in Ukraine).
Vira Vovk’s work is an original page in Ukrainian literature. She wrote works in Ukrainian, German, and Portuguese. She had published over a hundred books of her prose, poetry, and drama in Ukraine and abroad. Vovk is the author of the poetry collections Elehii (Elegies, 1956), Chorni Akatsii (Black Acacias, 1961), Pysani kakhli (Painted Stone Tiles, 1999), Pisnia Syreny (A Siren Song, 2010), etc. prose books Vitrazhi (Stained-Glass Windows, 1961), Napys na scarabeyu (Inscription on a scarab, 2007), Koliada na Shchedryj Vechir (Carol on a Bountiful Evening, 2008), etc.; plays Ikonostas Ukrainy (Iconostasis of Ukraine, 1988), Kazka pro Vershnyka (The Tale of the Rider, 1992), Krylata Skrypka (Winged Violin, 2001), etc.
Vira Vovk had translated more than fifty books of world literature into Ukrainian, and Ukrainian books into Portuguese, and other languages. She was the recipient of numerous international and domestic literary prizes and awards.
She died on July 16, 2022, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
