Andrej Chadanovič – На беразе волі (On the shore of freedom)
Illustration: Śviatłana Sofja Dziemidovič
hochroth Minsk
Berlin, 2023
ISBN 978-3-949850-31-8
Language: Belarusian
Incredible and unexpected, ironic and provocative, the “maitre” of contemporary Belarusian poetry. At the same time, Andrej Chadanovič is extremely sincere with the reader, desiring to talk about what is socially dangerous and intimate even during the translation of someone else’s text or the demonstration of the “mask” of a clown… Also, Chadanovič is a well-known lecturer, blogger and online correspondent. He is among the first figures of Belarusian culture to start the project of preserving it abroad and consolidating independent national art.
The quintessence of this experience is the book “On the shore of Freedom”, which includes poems from 2020-2023. It has the visual introduction by Śviatłana Sofja Dziemidovič, whose illustration, terrible and symbolic, conveys the birth of the movement, the painful liberation. Such a book should reach the reader bound by the unsettled life in emigration or by the borders of a captured land, where “one cannot read” because there is no freedom. The poems become greeting letters, telling about the absence and necessity of freedom, waiting for changes, longing to stay close even at a distance. They are colored not only by despair, but also by hope: “bars are only preparation for a life where there are no bars”.
Andrej Chadanovič is a poet, translator, essayist and lecturer. Born in 1973 in Minsk. Author of ten collections of “adult” poetry, as well as one book of poems for children. The poems have been translated into fifteen languages and published as separate books in Ukraine, Poland and Sweden. Chadanovič translates poetry into Belarusian from French, English, Polish and Ukrainian. Laureate of the “Book of the Year” award for the children’s book “Нататкі таткі” (“Daddy’s Notes”, 2015). Laureate of the Karłas Šerman award for the translation of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry (2017). Laureate of the Natalla Arsieńnieva award for the book “Школа травы” (“Grass School”, 2020). Laureate of The Crystal Vilenica award (2008), Polish PEN Club award (2015), the Jerzy Giedroyc Prize of the Rzeczpospolita newspaper (2021). Chadanovič taught literature at the Philological Faculty of the Belarusian State University, at the Belarusian Collegium and at the Jakub Kołas Humanities Lyceum. Conducted the “Translation Workshop” at the Belarusian PEN Center and at the School of Young Writers at the Union of Belarusian Writers. Teaches literature in the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania), gives lectures online: www.youtube.com/@chadanovic.