Yuri Andrukhovych emerged as a prominent voice in Ukrainian literature with the publication of his first book of poems in 1985. The same year, together with Oleksandr Irvanets and Viktor Neborak, he formed the poetic group Bu-ba-bu, which became a leading force in Ukrainian poetic innovation for nearly a decade. After publishing only prose for a number of years, Andrukhovych returned to poetry in great form but with a much-changed poetics in 2004, with the publication of another collection. A comprehensive selection of his poetry from the 1980s-1990s, titled Lysty v Ukrainu (Letters to Ukraine), came out in 2013; in it, Andrukhovych revisited and revised several of those texts. This book traces the evolution of his poetics from the 1980s onward.

Translated by: Vitaly Chernetsky, Ostap Kin