The book arsenal announced the focus topic and curators

The identity of the new Book Arsenal

The main theme of the XII International Book Arsenal Festival was the metaphor “Life on the Edge”. It will be represented by a literary critic Tatyana Ogarkova and a philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko.

Information about it appeared on the “Knyzhkovo Arsenalu” website.

“The closer to the border, the more reality becomes rarefied – there are fewer and fewer people, movement, and life. A person on the street is an event. An open coffee shop is the center of an empty quarter. A military vehicle that flies past you at speed is action. Distant sounds of explosions completely displace the usual noise of the city. The closer to the limit, the more the speed of movement increases, because here everyone understands that death always approaches faster than you move. It is the air itself that becomes dangerous“, the organizers explained the meaning of the topic.

As the general director of the Art Arsenal introduced the curators Olesya Ostrovska FebruaryTetiana and Volodymyr made an invaluable contribution to Ukrainian subjectivity with the help of a podcast about culture, numerous articles, books and speeches.

“However, when we invited them to curate the focus topic, we thought about more than that. We were talking about their regular volunteer trips throughout Ukraine, and most of all to the Ukrainian East and South, which have been going on since the first days of the Russian invasion. About what they see, how they make sense of what they see, who offer conclusions“, the director added.

The curator of the Literary Program of Book Arsenal 2024 was a radio presenter, radio producer and writer Olena Huseynova. The program for and about children and teenagers will be supervised by a journalist, translator and writer Olga Rusina.

The special program of events will be taken care of for the second time Ukrainian PEN. They will also organize a special program in cooperation with the Kharkiv Literary Museum – “Fifth Kharkiv”. A literary critic, literary critic, lecturer and curator of art projects was named the curator of this program Evgeny Stasinevich.

The professional program of the festival, which will become a platform for industry discussions and exchange of experiences, will be held under the curatorship of Oksana Karpiuk.

This year, both curators of the Book Arsenal and publishers will present various events. The XII International Book Festival will take place from May 30 to June 2.

About Book Arsenal

Book Arsenal International Festival – the annual project of the Art Arsenal. It was held for the first time in 2011. Since then, almost half a thousand famous international authors from more than half a hundred countries have become guests of the festival’s international program. Every year, about 200 Ukrainian publishing houses present their publications at the exhibition-fair.

In March 2019, the Book Arsenal was recognized as the best literary festival of the year at the London Book Fair.

In 2022, the festival was canceled due to Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. However, in January 2023, the organizers of the festival the winners of the all-Ukrainian competition “The best book design 2022” were named.

“The mission of the “Book Arsenal” International Festival is to create such interactions between people, communities, institutions, when the combination of aesthetic experience and intellectual inclusion in the context of a book strengthens the capacity of a person and society“, – noted organizers

The Book Arsenal of 2024 takes place with the financial support of the State Ministry of Culture and Media of Germany within the framework of the project “Reciprocal exchange between the German and Ukrainian literary and book sectors”.