Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer, and our dearest colleague, passed away

With our greatest pain, we inform you that Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina passed away on July 1st in Mechnykov Hospital in Dnipro. Her death was caused by injuries incompatible with life, which she suffered from during the Russian missile shelling of a restaurant in Kramatorsk on June 27th, 2023. We are announcing this news now when all Victoria's family members have learned about it and with their consent.

On June 27th, Victoria Amelina, Ukrainian writer and member of PEN Ukraine, who has been documenting Russian war crimes with the human rights initiative Truth Hounds, was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists. As they were having dinner at the Ria Lounge restaurant downtown, Russians launched a missile attack on this restaurant. Victoria was severely injured. Doctors and paramedics in Kramatorsk and Dnipro did everything they could to save her life, but the injuries were fatal and incompatible with life. In the last days of Victoria’s life, her closest people and friends were with her.

Based upon interviews with witnesses, PEN Ukraine and Truth Hounds said earlier that the Russian shelling of a civilian object in a Ukrainian city was another war crime of the Russian army in Ukraine. The analysis of destruction and evidence from witnesses show that Russians use a high-precision Iskander missile. They clearly knew that they were shelling a place with many civilians inside. We know of 13 dead and about 60 wounded.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Victoria Amelina has expanded her work far beyond literature. In 2022 she joined the human rights organization Truth Hounds. She has been documenting Russian war crimes on de-occupied territories in the Eastern, Southern and Northern parts of Ukraine, in particular in Kapytolivka near Izyum where she found a diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a Ukrainian writer killed by the Russians.

During this time Victoria also started working on her first non-fiction book in English. In War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, which should soon be published abroad, Victoria tells stories of Ukrainian women who are documenting Russian war crimes, and their lives during the war. She also did advocacy work in other countries, calling on the governments of those countries to enhance Ukrainian defense against Russian aggression by supplying weapons to Ukraine, and demanding justice and the international tribunal for all those who organized and committed Russian war crimes in Ukraine. She also raised the issue of commonalities in the anti-colonial fight of Ukrainians and other nations of the world.

Victoria Amelina was born on January 1st, 1986, in Lviv. While still in school, she moved to Canada with her father, but soon decided to come back to Ukraine. In 2007 she received her master’s in computer technology cum laude from Lviv Polytechnic University. In 2005-2015 she worked in international IT companies.

In 2014 she published her first novel, The November Syndrom, or Homo Compatiens. The book was listed in the top 10 of the best prose books, according to the annual rating of LitAktsent, a Ukrainian literature website. It was republished the next year and entered the shortlist of Valeriy Shevchuk Prize.

In 2015, Victoria Amelina suspended her work in IT and dedicated herself fully to her writing. In 2016 she published her first children’s book, Somebody, or Waterheart. Her next book, Storie-e-es of Eka the Excavator was published in 2021. Her second novel, Dom’s Dream Kingdom (Dim dlya Doma), was published in 2017 with Old Lion Publishers in Lviv. The book was shortlisted for both national and international awards: LitAktsent 2017 Prize UNESCO City of Literature Prize, and the European Union Prize for Literature. Knyzhkova Toloka, a book festival in Zaporizhzhia, named Dom’s Dream Kingdom the best prose book of the year.

Victoria Amelina’s texts have been published in translation into Polish, Czech, German, Dutch, and English. Dom’s Dream Kingdom has been recently translated into Spanish.

In 2021 Victoria received the Joseph Conrad-Korzeniowski literature prize. The same year, she founded the New York Literature Festival in the town of New York in the Bakhmut rayon of the Donetsk oblast, Eastern part of Ukraine.

We share the tremendous pain and express the sincerest compassion to the family members, friends, and colleagues of our dearest Victoria.

Very soon her family members will inform you about the time and place of the farewell gathering and funeral of Victoria in Kyiv and Lviv.

For us, Victoria’s friends and colleagues, it is very important the cultural initiatives set up by her, could last. Very soon we will share with you information about the ways you can support her life’s work.