The

Forest Song

A Fairy Play

Lesia Ukrainka

translated by Virlana Tkacz • Wanda Phipps

with an introduction by George G. Grabowicz

The Forest Song represents the crowning achievement of Lesia Ukrainka’s mature period. A play in three acts, it seemingly breaks with her intellectually charged social and cultural themes, which range from feminism to the workings of colonialism. Here, the author presents a symbolist meditation on the interaction of humanity and nature seen through childhood memories and the re-creation of local Volhynian folklore. The play unfolds in spirited dialogues between characters from Ukrainian mythology and people of the land: Old Man River, the Nymph, two water spirits, Uncle Leo, Luke, Sylph, and the peasant woman Kylyna and her mother-inlaw. The Forest Song is a testament to the power of love to overcome differences and bring loved ones back from the dead.

Lesia Ukrainka (pen name of Larysa Kosach-Kvitka; 1879–1913) was one of the most prominent Ukrainian writers, poets, playwrights, literary scholars, and activists of the late nineteenth–early twentieth century.

Virlana Tkacz heads the Yara Arts Group and has directed original shows at La MaMa Experimental Theatre, including three productions based on Lesia Ukrainka’s The Forest Song.

November · paper · 350 pages

6 3/4 x 9 1/2  · $39.00x

Not for sale in Italy

Art

9780674294219

40 color photos

I Tatti Research Series

Villa I Tatti

Wanda Phipps is a writer and translator, a founding member of the Yara Arts Group, and recipient of awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Theater Translation Fund.

December · 160 pages

5 x 8 · $29.95x cloth · $19.95x paper

Drama cloth: 9780674291874 paper: 9780674291881

Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature

Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute distributed books