Irish-Published Ukrainian Novel Shortlisted For Two Major Prizes
Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartchuk, tr. Zenia Tompkins (Bullaun Press, 2024) has been shortlisted for the EBRD Literature Prize 2025 & the inaugural Tadeusz Bradecki Prize 2025.
Bullaun Press, Ireland’s first and only publisher dedicated exclusively to literary translation, funded by the Arts Council, is delighted that one of its recent titles, Forgottenness, has been doubly shortlisted. This follows the independent press’s recent longlisting for the 2025 International Booker Prize with their first of two titles from Gaëlle Bélem – There’s a Monster Behind the Door. The French author’s second book in translation, The Rarest Fruit, is forthcoming this May.
About the Book
Two tales intertwined in a profound double portrait, Forgottenness painstakingly traces parallels between the historical and the contemporary, the collective and the individual, between the stories of two people born on the same day, a century apart. The narrator, a writer grappling with her growing anxiety and obsessive thoughts, becomes fixated on Viacheslav Lypynskyi (1882–1931), a once-significant figure in the struggle for Ukrainian independence who has since fallen into oblivion.
Tanja Maljartschuk is an acclaimed contemporary Ukrainian writer, now working in both German and Ukrainian. Her work has been translated into more than ten languages, and her recent accolades include the Theodor Kramer Prize for writing in Resistance and Exile (2023) and the Usedom Literature Prize (2022).
Zenia Tompkins, founder of the Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation (TAULT), has previously translated Maljartschuk’s A Biography of a Chance Miracle (2018) and The Ukraine by Artem Chapeye (also shortlisted for the EBRD Literature Prize 2025).
About the Prizes
The EBRD Literature Prize celebrates outstanding literary works in English translation by writers from countries where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests.
● Shortlist: 10 books from 7 countries; Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Türkiye and Ukraine.
● Judges: writer, critic and journalist Maya Jaggi (Chair); writer and editor Selma Dabbagh; translator and Associate Professor in Ukrainian and East European Culture (UCL), Uilleam Blacker; and writer and BBC News correspondent, Fergal Keane.
● Finalists to be announced in April and winner on 24 June at a public ceremony in London. Prize of €20,000 (divided equally between author and translator).
The Tadeusz Bradecki Prize 2025 is a new literary award honouring imaginative works that blend fiction and non-fiction across disciplines, cultures, and artistic genres.
● Shortlist: 6 books, published in the UK or Europe.
● Judges: writer Francis Spufford (Chair); Polish film and theatre director Krzysztof Zanussi; and editorial consultant Carole Welch.
● Winner & 2 runners up to be announced 21 May at a ceremony held at Ognisko Polskie – The Polish Hearth Club, London. Prize of £1,500.
Media Enquiries: contact Bridget Farrell
info@bullaunpress.com | 087 2096267 | www.bullaunpress.com
