(born 1961, Yaniv, Lviv region)

Viktor Neborak is a writer, scholar and organizer. He graduated from the University of Lviv in 1983, lectured in a number of colleges in the Lugansk oblast and later in Lviv, and was awarded a PhD of the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature in 1989.

In 1985, Viktor Neborak, Yurii Andrukhovych and Oleksandr Irvanets founded the Bu-Ba-Bu (Burlesque, Babble, Buffoonery) literary group in Lviv. Neborak’s formal title in the group was that of the Procurator, and his poem Tambourine (A Sonnet by the Flying Head) was the group’s anthem. The Bubabuists used Neo-Baroque and carnivalesque aesthetics, aiming to ‘liberate’ the language and crash taboos and colonial mentality. The group was active in 1987-1991, with the poetic opera Chrysler Imperial, staged by Serhii Proskurnia in 1992 in Vyvykh festival, considered the pinnacle of their work.

Neborak’s first book of poems, The Amber Time (1987), was a combination of comical poetics and lyricism, while his next book, The Flying Head (1991) was essentially Bubabuistic. In two years, Alter Ego (1993) was published, which showed a shift towards vers libre and meditative poetry. This tendency continued in The Epos of the Fifty-Third House (1999).

Just as Yurii Andrukhovych, Neborak made a career in music as well. In 1991, he founded and fronted the rock band Neborock. He also organized, produced and moderated a string of music festivals: Vyvykh (1992), Alternativa (1992, 1994) and Reberitatsia (1992-94). The Third Millenium, a series of literary soirees in Lviv, was another big culture project by Viktor Neborak. In 1995-1999 fifty-eight meetings took place, broadcasted by Lviv TV.

Neborak is also a scholar. He gave lectures on the history of Ukrainian literature in the University of Lviv in 1993-2000, works in the Lviv department of Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature and authored several books in literary studies: Aeneid Revisited (2001), Slow Reading (2010) and Ivan Franko: Highs and Lows (2016).