SELECTION COMMITTEE

Members of the Selection committee

The Selection committee #FreeAllWords is formed on the international basis and is composed of three members: all notable experts with competence in the field of literature and/or translation. Judges are selected and recruited by the project #FreeAllWords to determine the participants of the programme. The members of the Selection committee are: Vytautas Dekšnys, the Lithuanian translator, Natalia Trokhim, the Ukrainian poet and publisher and Barys Piatrovič, the Belarusian writer.

Vytautas Deksnys
  • Vytautas Deksnys

    Vytautas Dekšnys was born in Vilnius in 1972. He graduated from Vilnius University, MA studies in philosophy, and obtained a PhD from the Institute for Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
    Has translated more than 20 books and numerous minor publications from Polish, Ukrainian, and other Central-Eastern European languages. A member of the Lithuanian Writers' Union. Has worked as an international programs coordinator at the Lithuanian Writers’ Union, coordinated several translation workshops with Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belarusan authors and translators.
    His poetry book “Iszimtys” (“Exceptions”) was awarded with the Young Yotvingian Prize at the international Druskininkai Poetry Autumn Festival in 2006.

    Photo by Laura Vansevičienė

Barys Piatrovič
  • Barys Piatrovič

    Barys Piatrovič is a Belarusian writer, novelist. Born in 1959 in a settlement near the town of Chojniki (the Homiel Rajon [District]) and started his career as a journalist at a Homiel-based newspaper.
    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.

Natalia Trokhym
  • Natalia Trokhym

    Born in 1967 in the city of Khmelnytskyi, graduated from a secondary school and a music school. In 1986, moved to Lviv, studied at a medical institute, graduated from the Department of Journalism of Lviv University.
    Worked as a nurse in a surgery suite, as a web maker at a company, as head of a children's literary and translation studio, as a tutor at her Alma Mater. Now she is an editor, translator, director of the publishing house “Cezve”. Lives in Lviv.
    Writes poems and prose. The author of 8 original collections and 30 translated publications, including the works by Oscar Wilde, Gerald Durrell, James Barrie, Salman Rushdie, Icchokas Meras, Amiran Svimonishvili, Nato Ingorokva, and others. Translates from English, Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusan, Czech, and Georgian. Laureate of the Maksym Rylsky Prize (2009) for her translation of Salman Rushdie's novel "Midnight's Children", laureate of the prize "Metaphora" (2013) for her translation of Tomas Venclova's poems.