International jury announced for the 2025 Encounter prize
Ukrainians and Jews have lived side-by-side on the territory of modern-day Ukraine for nearly two millennia. Separately and together, they weaved a tapestry that has left an indelible mark on Ukraine's cultural, linguistic, and historical legacy. Long periods of peaceful co-existence were also accompanied by years of tragedy, separating these two peoples through different historical experiences and narratives. Yet, as the twenty-first century progresses and as Ukraine and Israel shape their identities as independent states, shared threads remain, giving rise to a new understanding of the past.
In December 2019, the Canadian charitable nonprofit organization Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, in cooperation with Ukraine's NGO "Publishers Forum" (Lviv, Ukraine), announced a new initiative entitled Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize.
The prize aims to build on the common experiences of Ukrainians and Jews over the centuries, expressed in the written word. The Encounter prize is awarded annually to the most influential work in literature and nonfiction (in alternate years) that fosters Ukrainian-Jewish understanding, helping solidify Ukraine's place as a multi-ethnic society.
The first Encounter prize was awarded in September 2020 in the fiction category (prose, poetry and drama) to Vasyl Makhno for his novel Eternal Calendar (Lviv: The Old Lion Publishing House, 2019). The second year of the award in 2021 was dedicated to the nonfiction category (historical works, biographies, memoirs, journalism, essays), with the winner being Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern for the Ukrainian-language translation of his groundbreaking work, The Anti-Imperial Choice: The Making of the Ukrainian Jew (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2018). The third year of the award was held in 2023 in the fiction category (prose, poetry and drama) with Sofia Andrukhovych named winner for her novel Amadoka (Lviv: The Old Lion Publishing House, 2020.) The fourth year of the prize in 2024 was dedicated to the nonfiction category (historical works, biographies, memoirs, journalism, essays), with the winner being Yuriy Skira for his work Solid. The Life-Saving Footwear Factory (Lviv: Choven Publishing House, 2023).
The 2022 Encounter Prize was not awarded in connection with Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine.
In 2025, the Encounter prize returns with judging in the fiction category (prose, poetry, and drama). The winners will be awarded in October 2025 at the 32st Lviv International BookForum.
The Ukrainian Jewish Encounter and Ukraine's NGO "Publishers Forum" are pleased to announce the 2025 international jury for the Encounter prize in the category of fiction.
Ostap Slyvynsky (Ukraine/Jury Head)
Ostap Slyvynsky is a celebrated Ukrainian poet, translator, essayist, and scholar. He has authored five books of poetry, including Winter King (2018), and A Dictionary of War (2023), a documentary book based on testimonies of witnesses of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. His poetry has been published internationally, and Winter King was recently shortlisted for the American Translation Prize and the Derek Walcott Prize. He was awarded the Antonych Literary Prize (1997), the Hubert Burda Prize for young poets from Eastern Europe (2009), and the Kovaliv Fund Prize (2013). His works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He translates fiction and scholarly literature from English, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Polish. Slyvynsky is also a professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv) and member of PEN Ukraine.
Maria Genkin (United States/Jury Member)
Born and raised in Lviv, Maria Genkin moved to the United States to attend university. In 2020, she joined the board of Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering a secure and democratic Ukraine. An avid reader, she spearheaded Razom Literature, a program aimed at enhancing the visibility of Ukrainian literature in the English-speaking world by cultivating relationships with publishers, translators, booksellers, and readers. Each year, Razom Literature provides select grants to support the promotion of books by Ukrainian authors or to cover translation costs. Razom Literature was launched as a continuation of another organizational initiative, the Razom Book Club, which she manages. Genkin regularly moderates book events and lives in New York City with her family.
Volodymyr Yeshkilev (Ukraine/Jury Member)
Volodymyr Yeshkilev is a well-known Ukrainian prose writer, screenwriter, playwright, and publicist. Among Yeshkilev's seventeen published novels are the conspiracy saga, Situation "Zero", a trilogy about the times of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and the Ruin — Union, Cain, Malh, and the story of the young years of Hryhorii Skovoroda, Androgyn (All Corners of the Triangle). He is also known to the Ukrainian reader as a publicist and blogger, author of cultural articles and essays. In 2022, the full-length feature film Pattern, based on his novel of the same name, was released. His novel Cain became the winner of the national book rating "Book of the Year 2020" in the "Genre Literature" nomination.
