27.03.2026 Events, Literature, News

As a part of the programme presented by the Polish Institute Brussels during the Foire du Livre de Bruxelles 2026, we invite you to a meeting with Ukrainian author Pavlo Matyusha at Place à l’Europe.

This year’s edition of the FLB takes place under the theme Défier le futur / Challenge the Future. Challenging the future, and thus co-creating Europe’s future on our own terms begins with a fundamental gesture: mutual understanding.

The panel discussion titled Traduire le présent, défier le futur / Translating the Present, Challenging the Future will examine translation in its broadest sense: as a process bridging the civilian and military worlds, the personal and the collective, as well as a way of explaining the post-totalitarian experiences of Eastern Europe, which the West has not experienced. It will also examine translation as a tool for bridging the gap between the language of culture and that of political decision-making, as well as a medium for presenting lived history and its multiple narratives to national and international audiences.

The discussion will also address writing as a form of translation, translating memory, war, and post-Soviet heritage, with support for Ukraine understood as a consequence of shared historical trajectories that sometimes no longer require translation.

Participants:

Pavlo Matyusha: former soldier, writer, translator, and financier; member of PEN Ukraine. Co‑author of Lettres d’amour et de guerre (Éditions de l’Iconoclaste, 2024). His essays on war have been published in France and the United States, among other places.

Marilyn Josefson: diplomatic advisor to the President of the European Council. A Swedish diplomat with experience as EU Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan.

Tea Topuria: Georgian journalist and writer, winner of the 2025 European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL) for her book იაკობის ჭასთან (By Jacob’s Well).