Zhadan, Serhiy

The activist, poet, novelist, essayist, song writer, critic and translator from German, Belarusian and Russian, Serhiy Viktorovych Zhadan, is one of Ukraine's foremost contemporary writers. He was born in Starobilsk in Luhansk province, eastern Ukraine, and later went to live in Kharkiv. "I had a wonderful childhood," he says. "I grew up among nice, determined people who strived to build up their Communist state and who had everything taken away from them."