New Vienna Coffe House Conversations Episode with Oksana Forostyna Explores Untranslatable Ukrainian Humour and Life in Ukraine Today

Coffee House Conversations with Ivan Vejvoda logo

Oksana Forostyna, 2022/23 Europe's Futures Fellow of the IWM and ERSTE Foundation, joins Ivan Vejvoda from Lviv to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine, her recent essay on Ukrainian jokes and humour and their importance as a shield against trauma and aggression, the political life of the country during wartime; and daily family life during these difficult years.

A co-founder of Yakaboo Publishing Oksana was chosen for the New Europe 100 list of outstanding challengers from Central and Eastern Europe in 2014 and made the Top 100 People in Ukrainian Culture list by Novoe Vremya illustrated weekly in 2017. Her debut novel Duty Free was published in Ukraine in December 2012. She is also an author of essays and articles in Ukrainian and English. Forostyna was a former executive editor for Krytyka Journal and for Critical Solutions — an online media project of Krytyka. In 2015, she launched the independent publishing imprint TAO. Formerly a Marcin Król Fellow at Visegrad Insight, she is a Europe's Futures fellow at IWM this year.

Learn more about Oksana Forostyna here

Ivan Vejvoda is an IWM Permanent Fellow and is Head of the Europe's Futures program at the IWM.

Click here to listen to the full podcast.