(born in 1960 in Stanislav, now Ivano-Frankivsk)

Yurii Andrukhovych is one of the most well-known Ukrainian writers both in Ukraine and abroad.

Born in Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk), Andrukhovych played a key role in the Stanislav phenomenon (the term was coined by the writer and critic Volodymyr Yeshkilev), which refers to early Ukrainian postmodernism aiming to adopt the world cultural practices. Andrukhovych is a leading representative of the Stanislav phenomenon both as a writer and as the editor of the first postmodernist magazine in Ukraine, Chetver (1991–1996, co-editored by Yurii Izdryk).

Andrukhovych graduated from the Editorial Department of the Ukrainian Academy of Printing in 1982. In 1991, he graduated from the Advanced Literary Courses in the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute (Moscow). The Sky and Squares (1985) was Andrukhovych’s debut book of poems that immediately demonstrated a distinct literary style. It was followed by Downtown (1989), Exotic Birds and Plants (1991), and Songs for the Dead Rooster (2004).

In 1985, Andrukhovych was named the Patriarch of the Bu-Ba-Bu poetic group (Burlesque, Babble, Buffoonery) with Oleksandr Irvanets and Viktor Neborak as co-founders. The Bubabuists aimed to introduce new poetics, crash taboos, and fight postcolonial mentality through baroque forms and burlesque style.

Recreations (1992), Andrukhovych’s first novel, exemplified the Bubabuist aesthetics. The next two novels, The Moskoviad (1993) and Perverzion (1996), are also permeated with the writer’s signature features: exaggerated mystification, collage-like writing, eroticism, and playfulness. The novel Twelve Rings (2003) tells an alternative biography of Bohdan-Ihor Antonych, a Ukrainian poet from Lviv, whose poetic work Andrukhovych researched in his PhD thesis (1996). Two later novels are The Secret. Instead of a Novel (2007) and Lovers of Justice (2018).

Andrukhovych’s work as an essayist include Disorientation on Location (1999), The Devil’s Hiding in the Cheese (2006), The Lexicon of Intimate Cities (2011) and Here Rests Fantômas (2015). Some of his poems became lyrics for popular Ukrainian music bands (Mertvyi Piven, Plach Yeremii, Karbido). Andrukhovych’s works were translated into Polish, English, German, and other languages. He was the first writer to be awarded with the Angelus Central European Literature Award in 2006 (for his novel Twelve Rings).