Svetlana Ischenko

Biography

Svetlana V. Ischenko was born on July 30, 1969 in Mykolaiv, in the steppe region of the south of Ukraine.

She graduated from Mykolaiv public school number 38. Svetlana pursued her childhood love of music at the Mykolaiv Rimsky-Korsakov Music School, and graduated in piano in 1986. She received a College Diploma in Acting, Stage Directing and Visual Art from the Mykolaiv State College of Culture in 1988. She later attended the Mykolaiv Branch of the Kyiv State University of Culture and Arts and received a BA in Recreation Management and Pedagogy in 1998.

For several years (1988-2001) Svetlana was a stage actress at the Mykolaiv Ukrainian Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy. She played a number of significant characters from classic Ukrainian and European plays, among them Marusia (Marusia Churai by L.Kostenko), Catherine (Catherine by T. Shevchenko), Motrya (Kaydash’s Family by І. Nechuy-Levytsky), Yaryna (Where There are people, There is Sin by І. Tobilevych), Ryna (Myna Mazaylo by М. Kulish), Prince (Dregs by Janusz Glovatsky), Julie (The Family Weekend by Jean Poiret), and Countess Rosina (Marriage of Figaro by P. Beaumarchais). Svetlana also created many poetic texts and songs for thematic programs, plays and musical shows for the Mykolaiv Ukrainian Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy.

A number of Ukrainian composers and singers have created songs using Svetlana’s poetry for lyrics—Viktor Ures, Viktor Piatygorsky, Olexandr Nezhygai, Olena Nikishenko, Olexandr Goncharenko, Hanna Oliynykova, and others.

In 2001 Svetlana immigrated to Canada. She lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Svetlana continues to keep in close contact with Ukraine. She writes in Ukrainian (also in English). Her literary achievement includes translations. Svetlana Ischenko is a co-translator of English versions of poetry by Dmytro Kremin, winner of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian National Literary Prize.

Svetlana’s field of work in Canada is creating and teaching children’s programs in visual arts, ballet, creative dance, and musical theatre at Recreational Centres in North and West Vancouver. She has given poetry readings at the Vancouver Public Library in the “World Poetry Reading Series” and radio interviews on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio as well as Voice of America (“Musical Rainbow” by Alexandr Kaganovsky) in the U.S.

Publications

Svetlana’s poems were first published in the Mykolaiv regional newspaper The Soviet Prybuzhia on December 14, 1991. Svetlana’s literary work has appeared widely in a variety of publications in Ukraine, including magazines such as Dzvin (Lviv), Kyiv (Kyiv), Gorozhanin (Mykolaiv), Dyvoslovo (Kyiv), Art-Line (Kyiv), Vitchyzna (Kyiv), Kurier Kryvbasu (Kryviy Rig), and Vezha (Kirovograd), almanacs such as Borviy (Mykolaiv), Buzsky Gard (Mykolaiv), and Osvityanski vitryla (Mykolaiv), and in poetry anthologies such as Pochatki (Kyiv, Smoloskyp Press, 1998) and The Mykolaiv Oberig (Mykolaiv, Mozhlyvosti Kimmeriyi Press, 2004). Svetlana’s poems have also been published in Canadian literary magazines such as The Antigonish Review (Antigonish, Nova Scotia), Lichen (Whitby, Ontario), Event (Vancouver, British Columbia), and in poetic anthologies such as From This New World (Vancouver, Canada, 2003) and Che Wach Choe—Let the Delirium Begin (Lantzville, British Columbia, 2003).

Svetlana’s co-translations of the poetry of Dmytro Kremin, winner of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian National Literary Prize, have appeared in well-known literary magazines such as London Magazine (London, England, 2007), Prism International (Vancouver, Canada, 2007), and Hayden’s Ferry Review (Arizona, US, 2009), and in the trilingual collection Two Shores (Mykolaiv, Iryna Gudym Publisher, 2007).

Books of translations:

Awards

Svetlana Ischenko has won literary contests in Ukraine (The New Names of Ukraine and The Golden Harp) and in Canada (Burnaby Writers’ Society Poetry Contest). She was awarded an International Literary Prize of Ivan Koshelivets in 2013 (Israel).

She is a member of The Ukrainian Writers’ Association (1997) and The National Union of the Ukrainian Writers (1998).