Writing Through War: In Conversation with Myroslav Laiuk on Bakhmut

A SSEES Rethinking Eastern Europe and Eurasia seminar with Myroslav Laiuk, co-organised by the Ukrainian Institute

Bakhmut, formerly a quiet provincial city, is now a global headline. In his book Bakhmut, Myroslav Laiuk captures the most intense battles of 2023 through honest storytelling and powerful photography. He spent those days with soldiers, medics, and civilians, witnessing life where it seemed impossible to exist. Join us for an evening with the author to discuss what it means to write through war, to reflect on the challenges of representing violence and suffering, and to consider the writer’s responsibility in times of crisis. The conversation will also explore broader questions about how memory is shaped in real time, and how language can both record and resist destruction.

This event is co-organised by the Ukrainian Institute.

Myroslav Laiuk

Ukrainian writer and war reporter

He holds a PhD and taught creative writing at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy before the onset of the full-scale war. Prior to 2022, he also authored three poetry collections and three novels. Now, as a frontline war documentarian, he has published two books of wartime reportage – Bakhmut (2023) and Lists (2025). Bakhmut received the George Shevelov Prize (2024) and was shortlisted for the BBC Ukraine Book of the Year Award (2024) and Canada’s Peterson Literary Prize (2024).

Iryna Odrekhivska

Lecturer (Teaching) in Ukrainian and East European Culture

UCL SSEES

Her research and teaching focus on discourses of empire and cultural identity in East Central Europe, literature and memory, translation history, translingual writing and wartime environmental writing. Forthcoming volumes include Translation as Resistance: Czech and Ukrainian Historical Perspectives (University of Chicago Press, March 2026) and Translation Studies before ‘Translation Studies’ (UCL Press, January 2026). She is co-editor of the award-winning 'Translation in Ukraine'.