Translating Ukraine: INDEX at the Book Arsenal 2025

The INDEX team took part in the 13th annual Book Arsenal. This year, we were once again part of inspiring events and conversations that took place in Kyiv on 29 May – 1 June.

‘My rule is that a poet doesn’t necessarily have to document something, because that imposes certain limitations. Limitations in poetry seem artificial. And yet, the poet documents things unintentionally. I don’t really believe in writing that’s detached from its time,’ Ukrainian poet Kateryna Kalytko said during her conversation with INDEX’s Victoria Amelina Fellow Kateryna Iakovlenko. You can watch the recording via this link.

INDEX’s Sasha Dovzhyk took part in a panel discussion, ‘Our history, our losses, our Crimea, or How to talk to international audiences about Ukraine?’.

She also participated in a moving presentation of Victoria Amelina’s nonfiction book Looking at Women, Looking at War, which she co-edited with Tetyana Teren, Yaryna Grusha and Alex Amelin after the author was killed in a Russian missile attack.

ariel rosé — poet and 2024 INDEX Fellow — joined the discussion about translation, its broader meaning and imperialist narratives. The full discussion is available via this link.

We have donated the books purchased at the Book Arsenal to Ukrainian servicemembers through the Cultural Forces initiative.