Iryna Kolodiychyk: You have won many coveted German, Swiss and Austrian literary awards. Why was the Polish Angelus for literature so special to you?
Serhiy Zhadan: It was special thanks to that ‘Central European’ link and the fact that the award’s focus and emphasis have shifted closer to us. It was special thanks to the people I happened to meet. It was special because there were a lot of names I love and respect among this year’s nominees as well as previous winners.
I.K.: When did you first visit Poland? How do you remember it? How would you compare Poland then and now?
S.Z.: I remember my first visit very well. It wasn’t really a visit, more just passing through during the winter of 1994, with a group of Kharkiv students on our way to Nuremberg, which is twinned with Kharkiv. We changed in Warsaw, so Poland was indeed my first ‘foreign’ country and Warsaw, my first ‘foreign’ city. I remember it as being cold, dirty and dark. I even wrote a rather depressing poem, Varshava (Warsaw). A lot more visits to Poland followed, and I wrote plenty of texts about it that were much less depressing. But obviously, over the past twenty years, the country has changed and we’ve all changed. It would be weird if we hadn’t.
I.K.: That pessimistic poem, Varshava, was included in one of your first collections, Tsytatnyk (Quotations, 1995). Has it been translated into Polish?
S.Z.: I don’t think so. It’s some kind of adolescent contemplation on ‘the twilight of Western civilisation’, and I think it’s pretty naive.
I.K.: Which Polish authors, artists and works influenced you as a writer?
S.Z.: Marcin Świetlicki and Kazik Staszewski, of course, plus dozens of other Polish poets, authors and musicians. The ones I like to read, listen to, and translate.
I.K.: Which contemporary Polish writer is closest to you at the moment?
S.Z.: Right now, I’m reading Wschód (East) by Andrzej Stasiuk, translated by Taras Prokhasko. On the whole, Stasiuk is probably one of the most-important authors for me.
I.K.: To quote your poem Polskyy Rok (Polish Year): ‘the voice of an announcer, heard in a random taxi, takes you back to the Eighties, with the Year of Poland all over the radio’. Are you interested in Polish culture and Poland concerning specific creators and works, or are you really searching for common themes that were lacking in the post-Soviet, then Ukrainian society?