The Shipwright: A Novel
Yurii Yanovskyi
Mar 2027 · Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature Book 30 · Harvard University Press - T
Ebook
500
Pages
Tools
info
infoThis book will become available on March 2, 2027. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
The Shipwright is Yurii Yanovskyi’s dazzling 1928 novel of youth, art, cinema, and nation-making in Soviet-era Odesa. Set at the famed Odesa Film Studio—the “Soviet Hollywood” of its day—it captures the experimental energy of early Soviet film through a story that is unmistakably Ukrainian.
Presented as the memoir of an aging filmmaker interwoven with letters, recollections, and sailors’ tales, The Shipwright moves between the studio, the sea, and imagined worlds created on screen. While a group of young artists shape narratives of maritime life and collective memory, the deeper question animating the novel is what kind of story—and what kind of nation—they are building. Yanovskyi turns filmmaking, writing, and shipbuilding into linked acts of creation: each constructs a vessel for memory, identity, and the future.
The Shipwright is also a landmark portrayal of Ukrainian-language Odesa, a city more often represented through Russian imperial and Soviet cultural frames. Its characters echo figures from the world of Ukrainian cinema, including Oleksandr Dovzhenko, while its layered structure reflects on the artifice of narrative.
Long celebrated as a classic of Ukrainian neoromantic prose and often included on the lists of important Ukrainian books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Shipwright appears here in English translation for the first time, presenting to new readers one of the most inventive works of modern Ukrainian literature.
Presented as the memoir of an aging filmmaker interwoven with letters, recollections, and sailors’ tales, The Shipwright moves between the studio, the sea, and imagined worlds created on screen. While a group of young artists shape narratives of maritime life and collective memory, the deeper question animating the novel is what kind of story—and what kind of nation—they are building. Yanovskyi turns filmmaking, writing, and shipbuilding into linked acts of creation: each constructs a vessel for memory, identity, and the future.
The Shipwright is also a landmark portrayal of Ukrainian-language Odesa, a city more often represented through Russian imperial and Soviet cultural frames. Its characters echo figures from the world of Ukrainian cinema, including Oleksandr Dovzhenko, while its layered structure reflects on the artifice of narrative.
Long celebrated as a classic of Ukrainian neoromantic prose and often included on the lists of important Ukrainian books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Shipwright appears here in English translation for the first time, presenting to new readers one of the most inventive works of modern Ukrainian literature.
The Shipwright is Yurii Yanovskyi’s dazzling 1928 novel of youth, art, cinema, and nation-making in Soviet-era Odesa. Set at the famed Odesa Film Studio—the “Soviet Hollywood” of its day—it captures the experimental energy of early Soviet film through a story that is unmistakably Ukrainian.
Pres...
Discover more
About the author
Yurii Yanovskyi (1902–1954) was one of the leading neoromantic voices of the Ukrainian literary rebirth of the first half of the twentieth century. Associated with the writers’ organization Vaplite, he published poetry, short stories, novels, and plays. Several of his works were banned or rewritten under Soviet censorship during the independence movement of 1917–1920.
Ian Ross Singleton is the author of Two Big Differences and a translator of literature from the Ukrainian and Russian languages. He teaches Writing and Critical Inquiry at SUNY Albany and served as nonfiction editor at Asymptote.
Yurii Yanovskyi (1902–1954) was one of the leading neoromantic voices of the Ukrainian literary rebirth of the first half of the twentieth century. Associated with the writers’ organization Vaplite, he published poetry, short stories, novels, and plays. Several of his works were banned or rewritt...
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
