Vira Vovk

{{Short description|Ukrainian-born Brazilian writer (1926–2022)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Vira Vovk

| pseudonym = Vira Vovk

| birth_name = Vira Ostapivna Selianska

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1926|1|2|df=y}}

| birth_place = Boryslav, Ukraine

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2022|7|16|1926|1|2|df=y}}

| death_place = Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

| occupation = Writer, critic, translator, professor

| nationality = Ukrainian

| language = Ukrainian, German, Portuguese

| education = University of Tübingen
Columbia University
Munich University

| genre = Poetry, novels, plays

| awards = Ivan Franko Literary Award (1957, 1979, 1982, 1990)
Blahovist Award (2000)
Shevchenko National Prize (2008)

| image = Vira Vovk.JPG

}}

Vira Ostapivna Selianska ({{langx|uk|Ві́ра Оста́півна Селя́нська}}, pen name Vira Vovk ({{langx|uk|Ві́ра Вовк}}; 2 January 1926 – 16 July 2022) was a Ukrainian writer, critic and translator. She wrote in Ukrainian, German and Portuguese.

Biography

Born in Boryslav in 1926, she grew up in the Hutsul region in the town of Kuty (at that time on the Polish-Romanian border). Vira Vovk's secondary education was completed in Lviv and Dresden. She studied Germanics, music history and comparative literature at the University of Tübingen. In 1945, she emigrated with her mother to Portugal and in 1949, further to Brazil. She went to Rio de Janeiro where she completed her university studies. Post graduate studies were completed at Columbia University (New York City) and Munich University.

Vovk received a PhD and became professor of German literature at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Vovk has created ten collections of poetry, ten novels, and eleven plays and has made numerous translations of Western writers into Ukrainian and Ukrainian writers into Portuguese.

Vovk died on 16 July 2022 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the age 96.{{cite web |title=Померла Віра Вовк|url=http://bukvoid.com.ua/events/sum/2022/07/16/164320.html|website=bukvoid.com.ua|accessdate=16 July 2022 |language=Ukrainian|date=16 July 2022}}

Awards and achievements

She received the Ivan Franko Literary award in 1957, 1979, 1982 and 1990, the Blahovist award 2000. She actively propagated Ukrainian culture and language. In 2008, Vovk received Ukrainian state award Shevchenko National Prize.

Sources

Danylo Husar Struk, [http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CV%5CO%5CVovkVira.htm Vira Vovk] at Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Viktoriia Kostiuchenko, [http://umoloda.kiev.ua/number/164/0/40802/ Віра Вовк: Читачі в Бразилії і Португалії мають одне джерело, то є мої видання (Vera Wolf: Readers in Brazil and Portugal have one source, that is my publications)], Ukraina Moloda Newspaper, April 2008, in Ukrainian.
Літературні вечори в Українському Інституті Модерного Мистецтва Чикаго, 1973—2006 // Укладачі: Віра Боднарук, Володимир Білецький. — Донецьк: Український культурологічний центр, 2006. — 140 с.
[http://users.belgacom.net/babowal/wowk_00.htm Virtual library of Ukrainian poetry by the New York group.]
Liudmyla Taran, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110522145358/http://www.day.kiev.ua/63042/ Українка з Бразилії (A Ukrainian from Brazil]), Den, 13.06.2001
Vira Vovk, [http://uartlib.org/allbooks/vira-vovk-karnaval-opovidannya-kartin-yuriya-soloviya/ Карнавал. Оповідання до картин Юрія Соловія (Carnival. Narratives to paintings of Yurii Solovii)]. Rio de Janeiro, 1986.