Author Victoria Amelina dies after being wounded in the Russian strike on Kramatorsk
Writer Victoria Amelina passed away on July 1st in Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro. She was previously heavily wounded in a rocket strike on a restaruant in Kramatorsk on June 27, 2023, reports PEN Ukraine.
On June 27th, Victoria Amelina, Ukrainian writer and member of PEN Ukraine, who has been documenting Russian war crimes with the human rights initiative Truth Hounds, was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists. As they were having dinner at the Ria Lounge restaurant downtown, Russians launched a missile attack on this restaurant. Victoria was severely injured.
"Doctors and paramedics in Kramatorsk and Dnipro did everything they could to save her life, but the injuries were fatal and incompatible with life. In the last days of Victoria’s life, her closest people and friends were with her," notes the organization.
Victoria Amelina was born on January 1st, 1986, in Lviv. While still in school, she moved to Canada with her father, but soon decided to come back to Ukraine. In 2007 she received her master’s in computer technology cum laude from Lviv Polytechnic University. In 2005-2015 she worked in international IT companies.
In 2014 she published her first novel, "The November Syndrom, or Homo Compatiens". The book was listed in the top 10 of the best prose books, according to the annual rating of LitAktsent, a Ukrainian literature website. It was republished the next year and entered the shortlist of Valeriy Shevchuk Prize.
In 2015, Victoria Amelina suspended her work in IT and dedicated herself fully to her writing. In 2016 she published her first children’s book, "Somebody, or Waterheart". Her next book, "Storie-e-es of Eka the Excavator" was published in 2021. Her second novel, "Dom’s Dream Kingdom" (Dim dlya Doma), was published in 2017 with Old Lion Publishers in Lviv. The book was shortlisted for both national and international awards: LitAktsent 2017 Prize UNESCO City of Literature Prize, and the European Union Prize for Literature. Knyzhkova Toloka, a book festival in Zaporizhzhia, named "Dom’s Dream Kingdom" the best prose book of the year.
Victoria Amelina’s texts have been published in translation into Polish, Czech, German, Dutch, and English. "Dom’s Dream Kingdom" has been recently translated into Spanish.
In 2021 Victoria received the Joseph Conrad-Korzeniowski literature prize. The same year, she founded the New York Literature Festival in the town of New York in the Bakhmut rayon of the Donetsk oblast, Eastern part of Ukraine.
Very soon her family members will inform you about the time and place of the farewell gathering and funeral of Victoria in Kyiv and Lviv.
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