Sharjah World Book Capital (SWBC) and Poland’s Wroclaw Literature House, organising entity of UNESCO’s Wroclaw City of Literature project, announced the launch of ‘Stand with Ukrainian Writers Fund’ to provide financial support to writers, translators, and those working in the publishing sector who lost their jobs in Ukraine in response to the current crisis.
The Wroclaw Literature House sent an invitation to cities of literature and world book capitals and received prompt response and support from SWBC which helped in establishing a fund to provide financial grants to Ukrainian writers, translators, and publishers who lost their livelihoods due to the war, and to help them get scholarships or rights to their literary works.
Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, President of the International Publishers Association (IPA) and head of the Advisory Committee of Sharjah World Book Capital, that steered Sharjah’s tenure as the UNESCO World Book Capital 2019, expressed her happiness with the establishment of the fund, stressing the necessity of the written word in overcoming the challenges of difficult and harsh conditions and the need for the ‘book’ to build bridges of communication and dialogue, reduce differences and achieve security. She underlined her firm belief that the world of literature can open the gates of peace, noting that the humanitarian duty calls on the world to exert joint efforts to support this noble initiative.
Incidentally, Director of Wroclaw Literature House Erik Grin says, “We urge the international literary community to support the fund as all donations will be used to help writers, illustrators, and translators directly, while the fund will finance translation samples of Ukrainian literature into other languages.”
Wroclaw Literature House will work together closely with a number of Polish institutions and organizations including the Literary Union and the Polish Literary Translators Association, in addition to UNESCO Cities of Literature and the Ukrainian Book Institute to identify the needs of Ukrainian writers.
