#  Alex Averbuch: Readings from "The Jewish King" and "Of Rage and Longing" 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 27, 2023** 

 05:00PM - 06:30PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Pritsak Memorial Library at HURI, 34 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138**  



 

 



 

   
**Poetry Reading** by **[Alex Averbuch](https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/about/people/alex-averbuch)**, current Postdoctoral Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and 2024 HURI Research Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

 Moderated by **[Oleh Kotsyuba](https://huri.harvard.edu/people/oleh-kotsyuba)**, Manager of Publications at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

 ![Averbuch Poetry Reading](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/huri/files/averbuch_digital_poster.png)

 

##  Event Description

 Alex Averbuch will read, in the original Ukrainian and in English translation, from his latest book *Zhydivsky korol* (*The Jewish King*, a 2023 finalist for the Shevchenko National Prize), as well as from his upcoming collection, *Of Rage and Longing*, and answer questions from the audience. Averbuch's poetry deals with interwoven Jewish-Ukrainian relations through the prism of his family history and Ukraine's multiethnic past and present. The book features poeticized documentary materials related to the Second World War: letters by Ukrainian Ostarbeiters sent to their relatives in Ukraine, interwoven with letters by Jewish Holocaust survivors who returned to devastated villages in Ukraine in search of their murdered relatives, as well as poems about the Russo-Ukrainian war currently taking place in his home region of Luhans’k. Unsettling but ultimately liberatory de-specifications of ethnos, language, and sexuality relieve trigger-points in Ukraine’s history through the confessional intimacy of family, shame, pleasure, and the reconciliation of self and other.

##  About the Speaker

   ![Alex Averbuch 2023](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/huri/files/averbuch_square.jpg?itok=5l88Wzhz) 

 

**Alex Averbuch,** a poet, translator, and scholar, is the author of four books of poetry and an array of literary translations between Hebrew, Ukrainian, English, and Russian. English translations of his poems have appeared in *the Manhattan Review*, *Copper Nickel*, *Plume*, *Birmingham Poetry Review*, *Words Without Borders*, *Sugar House Review,* *Constellations*, and *Common Knowledge*. His latest book *Zhydivs’kyi korol'* (*The Jewish King*), from which most of the forthcoming English collection *Of Rage and Longing* derives, was a finalist for the Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine’s highest award for culture and literature. Averbuch is active in promoting Ukrainian-Jewish relations. He has translated into Hebrew and published over thirty selections of poetry by contemporary Ukrainian poets. Currently he is compiling and editing an anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry in Hebrew translation. Alex is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and a future HURI Research Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University. He has a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures and Jewish Studies from the University of Toronto.  ──────────────────

 *This event is organized by Harvard's [Ukrainian Research Institute](https://huri.harvard.edu/) (HURI) as part of the weekly [Seminar in Ukrainian Studies](https://huri.harvard.edu/seminars-and-memorial-lectures) public event series. It is co-sponsored by the [Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures](https://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/), the [Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies](https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/), and the [Center for Jewish Studies](https://cjs.fas.harvard.edu%20) at Harvard University.*

 *Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Megan Duncan Smith, HURI Programs Coordinator, at <duncansmith@fas.harvard.edu> at least two weeks in advance of the session.*

 *Watch videos of past HURI events on our [YouTube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/user/huriyt) and [subscribe](https://web.lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/lists/huri-events-list.lists.fas.harvard.edu/) to our email list to receive announcements about events and other activities.*



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Seminar in Ukrainian Studies ](/event-type/seminar-ukrainian-studies)
- [ Art and Culture ](/fields-expertise/art-and-culture)
- [ Contemporary Literature ](/fields-expertise/contemporary-literature)
- [ Literature ](/fields-expertise/literature)
 
 

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