Yuri Tkacz
Yuri Tkacz was born in 1954 in Melbourne, Australia to young postwar emigres from Ukraine. He grew up in the city’s western suburbs, engrossed from a young age in Ukrainian literature, first children’s books and later works by Hutsalo, Dimarov, Berdnyk and others. While studying engineering at university he became aware of books translated from Russian into English, and this gave him the impetus to start translating Ukrainian books. Teaming up with artist Olya Kohut, he produced in quick succession visually enticing titles by A. Dimarov, I. Kaczurowskyj, Vasyl Shevchuk, B. Antonenko-Davydovych, D. Chub. The books were positively reviewed in the Australian press. In 1979 he left his job as an engineer to pursue a full-time professional career as a literary translator. Since then he has had more than 30 books published. In 1981-1984 he emigrated to Canada and translated various pioneer texts from Ukrainian into English. Between 1989-1993 he resided in Kyiv and translated novels into English, edited English texts for publishers, did volunteer work for Rukh, worked as an editor for a US news agency and for Window on Ukraine, and produced English subtitles for two Ukrainian documentaries. In 1993 he returned to Australia, married and continued to translate, travelling regularly to Ukraine. He travelled with author Maria Matios across the USA in 2011 to launch her books translated by him. In 2016 he was selected by the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies as the recipient of the George S. N. Luckyj Ukrainian Literature Translation Prize. Yuri continues to translate novels by modern-day Ukrainian authors, as well as those from the 1920s and 1930s. Currently he is translating Doctor Seraphicus by V. Domontovych.
During the residency, he will focus on preparing for publication his translation of Bezkhatny (Children of the Prairie) by Alexander Luhovy, a work depicting the lives of Ukrainian emigrants in Canada during the Great Depression of the 1930s.