Volha Hapeyeva
Belarusian-language poetry for children is still mainly in traditional rhymed forms. The poet Volha Hapeyeva derives from this the adults' fear of the diversity of poetry and sets herself the goal of showing even the smallest readers how different poems can be, both in form and content. The way to this book led from an extensive research of anthologies from different countries as well as theoretical literature about the (missing) rhyme in children's poetry. Volha Hapeyeva chooses poems from different centuries and cultural contexts, both from well-known authors and from those who are still waiting to be (re)discovered in the Belarusian cultural space: from Kobayashi Issa and Mohan Rana to Erich Fried and Hugo Ball to Friederike Mayröcker and Mari Kono - as different as the authors are, all their texts offer an unusual view of the small and big things in life and are an exercise in empathy.
Volha Hapeyeva translated and illustrated the poems. The work on the book was supported by a scholarship at the International Youth Library Munich (March-April 2021).
Halijafy was an independent Belarusian publishing house founded in 2007. On 16 April 2022, it had to cease its publishing activities by decision of the Belarusian Ministry of Information.
For 15 years, the Halijafy publishing house published books by contemporary Belarusian authors who belong to the independent literary and artistic scene in Belarus. Among the authors of the Halijafy publishing house are Volha Hapeyeva, Alhierd Baharevich, Julia Cimafeeva and Valiancin Akudowitsch, who have also been translated into German. Halijafy's publications have been awarded several non-state literary prizes in Belarus, and two of the books were chosen as "Book of the Year".
Volha Hapeyeva, born in Minsk (Belarus), is a poet, author, translator and linguist with a PhD. She has received numerous prizes and awards for her work. Her poems have been translated into more than 15 languages. She is the author of 14 books in Belarusian. Her German publications include the poetry collection "Mutantengarten" (Edition Thanhäuser, 2020) and the novel "Camel-Travel" (Droschl Verlag, 2021), the essay "Die Verteidigung der Poesie in Zeiten dauernden Exils" (Verbrecher Verlag, 2022).
In 2021/2022 she was a fellow of the PEN Centre Germany, since 2022 - DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellow. She was awarded Der Rotahorn-Literaturpreis (Austria) in 2021 and Wortmeldungen-Literaturpreis in 2022. She has been living in exile since 2020. Foto: © Samu Bergson
The book is already designed and set.