Language, Culture, and the Search for a Ukrainian Hero: An Interview with Yurii Pokal’chuk

Abstract

Yurii Pokal’chuk is a popular writer and translator living in Kiev. He graduated from Leningrad University and has worked at the Institute of Literature of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. A member of the Ukrainian Writers’ Union, he is the author of ten novels, most of which have been translated into Russian and published in mass editions. Pokal’chuk is an expert on the contemporary American novel. He has been an active member of “Rukh” and an outspoken opponent of the Shcherbitsky leadership in Ukraine. He was a guest of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, when this interview took place on September 27, 1989.