Prize-winning Ukrainian writer dies of injuries after restaurant missile attack
3 July 2023, 12:14
Victoria Amelina had turned her attention from literature to document Russian war crimes after the invasion in February 2022.
Prize-winning Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina was among those killed by a deadly Russian missile attack on a popular restaurant frequented by journalists and aid workers in eastern Ukraine, a literature and human rights organisation has said.
The 37-year-old, who had turned her attention from literature to document Russian war crimes after the invasion, died from her injuries after the strike in the city of Kramatorsk on June 27, said PEN America.
At least 11 other people were killed and 61 injured in the attack, which happened around dinnertime, when the restaurant was usually busy.
Ukrainian authorities arrested a man a day later, accusing him of helping Russia direct the strike.
That attack and others across Ukraine the same evening suggested the Kremlin is not easing its aerial onslaught on Ukraine, despite political and military turmoil at home after a short-lived armed uprising in Russia last week.
We are announcing this news now when all Victoria's family members have learned about it and with their consent https://t.co/vH97YGLQXS
— PEN Ukraine (@PenUkraine) July 3, 2023
PEN Ukraine announced Ms Amelina’s death after her family had been informed.
She was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists, and had been documenting Russian war crimes with the human rights organisation Truth Hounds.
Polina Sadovskaya, Eurasia director at PEN America, said: “Victoria Amelina was a celebrated Ukrainian author who turned her distinct and powerful voice to investigate and expose war crimes after the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“She brought a literary sensibility to her work and her elegant prose described, with forensic precision, the devastating impact of these human rights violations on the lives of Ukrainians.”
Victoria Amelina was born in Lviv on January 1 1986.
In 2014 she published her first novel, The November Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens, which was shortlisted for the Ukrainian Valeriy Shevchuk Prize.
With our most incredible pain, we inform you that Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina passed away on July 1st in Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro. pic.twitter.com/MJBMwhDMuf
— PEN Ukraine (@PenUkraine) July 3, 2023
She went on to write two prize-winning children’s books, Somebody, or Waterheart, and Storie-e-es of Eka the Excavator.
In 2017, her novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom received a raft of national and international accolades – including the Unesco City of Literature Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she had devoted herself to documenting Russian war crimes in eastern Ukraine.
In Kapytolivka near Izium, she discovered the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a Ukrainian writer killed by the Russians.
She also began working on her first work of English non-fiction shortly before her death.
In War And Justice Diary: Looking At Women Looking At War, which is expected to be published soon, she recounts stories of Ukrainian women collecting evidence of Russian war crimes.
