Belarusian writer, journalist and literary critic Ales Arkush, within the Białystok-based publishing initiative “Polatskaye Lyada” and in cooperation with the Polish publishing house EkoPress, has launched the “Brukavanka” series. The editor plans to publish small, pocket-sized poetry collections that can be taken on trips.
Collections of poems by Ales Arkush, “Not Thinking About Sleep and Defeats,” and Yanka Laykou, “Songs of Embarrassed Rivers,” have already been released. The next book will feature poems by Syarhei Pataransky.
“Brukavanka” is similar to the “Poets of the Planet” series, which publishes selected books by individual authors. “Poetry has found itself in a very difficult situation, as many poets and writers in Belarus have been placed on unofficial lists—they cannot publish in periodicals, let alone release books,” the series editor Ales Arkush told Polish Radio. “And those publishing houses established in exile also operate in a difficult economic situation. For them, publishing poetry is simply loss-making. This is already a serious problem.”
The new series aims to summarize a certain stage of the poetic development of Belarusian literature, for example from the early 1990s to 2020. “Because the 1990s were very interesting. I believe these were the ‘golden years’ of Belarusian literature, as it was a period of liberation,” Ales Arkush noted.
Books from the “Brukavanka” series will be sold at the Białystok Book Fair, which will take place from April 17 to 19.
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