The Babylonian Library publishing house has published a new documentary novel by writer and journalist Oleh Kryshtopa, Radio Aphrodite. This is a story about the underground radio station of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which broadcast in several languages for a year and a half, telling the world about the struggle of Ukrainians in the occupied territories.
The book will be presented in Ivano-Frankivsk soon:
When: 22 May, 18:30
Where: Wagabundo, 7 Pylyp Orlyka St.
This book is not just another story about victims. It is a story of victory, strength, and incredible achievement: how Ukrainians created a radio without a state, in the face of war and repression, and made their voices heard in Europe. On the pages of the novel, Stepan Bandera, who screws in a light bulb in a Vienna apartment, and Oksana Zabuzhko, as well as Goebbels and Russian prisoners of war, coexist together.
The book took 14 years to complete. The author researched archives, travelled through the Carpathians in search of graves and hiding places, and travelled to Belgium and the Netherlands.
‘This story has become a part of my life. During the 14 years of working on the book, Belgian Albert Hasenbroeks, a radio announcer, became almost like family to me. But the paradox is that now our modern life has become a continuation of this story,’ says Oleg Kryshtopa, the author of the novel.
The publication of the book was supported by the MORIS law firm, co-founders of the Babylonian Library publishing house.
‘When Oleh Kryshtopa first told us the story of Radio Aphrodite, we, people who are fact-oriented, did not believe it at first – we thought that the author, with his usual imagination, was embellishing the truth. But thanks to the details we found, the events of 80 years ago are now very close to us – and they are surprisingly in tune with what we are going through now: it’s still war, and we are not giving up. We are fighting. And we are telling the world about ourselves,’ says Oksana Kobryn, Partner, Head of MORIS Western Ukraine Office.
Oleh Kryshtopa is a writer, journalist, author of the YouTube channel ‘History for Adults’, one of the founders of Ukrainian artistic reporting. Winner of the Samovydets contest (2012), winner of the Smoloskyp Publishing House Prize (2000). He is the author of more than ten books of fiction, essays and non-fiction. His documentary novel Brotherhood, about the Cyril and Methodius Society, was published by Babylon Library in 2019.
‘Babylon Library is an Ivano-Frankivsk-based publishing house founded in 2015. It specialises in translations of world literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including intellectual fiction, poetry, and drama. In addition to translated editions, the team implements a number of important experimental projects in collaboration with Ukrainian authors, translators, and illustrators. Among the authors of the publishing house is General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.
