Description
Barys Piatrovič is a Belarusan writer, novelist. He was born in 1959 in a small settlement near the town of Chojniki (the Homiel District) and started his career as a journalist at a Homiel-based newspaper.
Barys Piatrovič is a founder of the independent literary magazine “Dziejasłoŭ” that provides Belarusan democracy-oriented authors with a possibility to reach their audience under the conditions of the authoritarian regime in Belarus. In 2011, he was elected Chairperson of the Union of Belarusan Writers. The organization was created in 1934 and since the 1990s (after Belarus became an independent state) has been actively defending Belarusan authors’ freedom of speech and self-expression. In 2021, the organization was closed by the regime as its members openly declared their civic position and took an active part in the protest actions in 2020 in Belarus.
Barys Piatrovič is the author of more than ten books of prose and one book of poetry.
Some of his works have been translated into German, English, French, Czech, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Serbian, and other languages.
His books have been published in Sweden, Poland, and Ukraine.
Spanish Translator: Ángela Espinosa Ruiz
Ángela Espinosa Ruiz is a translator, poet, and researcher. She was born in Málaga and graduated the University of Granada; she has a master’s degree in Belarusan Philology from the University of Warsaw. She also has a music diploma (Professional Degree in Piano Interpretation).
Nowadays, Angela is a lecturer at the University of Warsaw, teaching courses in the Belarusan language and literature, the Spanish language, and world literature.
Ángela is an active participant of international conferences and congresses in the humanities and an honorary member of the Union of Belarusan Writers, having published four literary anthologies in the Belarusan language and a bilingual (Spanish-Belarusan) poetry anthology of selected works by Maksim Bahdanovič, as well as several translations and literary works in collective anthologies.
She obtained a PhD in Literary Studies at the Complutense University in Madrid, having graduated summa cum laude after the defense of her dissertation, “Folklore-Inspired Symbolism in the Prose of J. Barščeŭski and G. A. Bécquer” on September 4th, 2019.
