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Dec. 25, 2025, 1:45 p.m.
PEN Ukraine has compiled a selection of the best books in Ukraine in 2025
Цей матеріал також доступний українською1
PHOTO: PEN
PEN Ukraine members have compiled a selection of books that impressed them during the year. This year's list includes 252 books.
As noted by the Ukrainian Publishing Association, the list is traditionally composed of prose and poetry novels, translations, drama, nonfiction, works for children, art publications, and humanities. The selection includes only books published in Ukraine during 2025.
The books include, for example, Evening in Istanbul by Andriy Lyubka and Who We Were by Valeriy Puzik. The books are included in the Ukrainian Prose section, which includes a total of 35 works by various authors.
The selection also includes not only contemporary and Ukrainian writers, but also foreign and non-contemporary ones, such as Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky and his book Over the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian Center of PEN International (PEN Ukraine, an acronym for Poets, Playwrights, Essayists and Novelists) was founded in the fall of 1989. The main criterion for joining PEN is not the number of books published or even the recommendations of colleagues, but a statement in which the future member of the organization promises to adhere to the principles listed in the PEN Charter. By joining PEN, its members pledge to do everything possible to develop literature and oppose any form of oppression of freedom of speech and expression in Ukraine and around the world.
Last year, PEN Ukraine traditionally compiled a list of publications that impressed its members during the year, which included 201 books, including works by Odesa poet Andriy Hayetskyi.
The poetry collection "Something", which was included in the list, contains poems about "where" the heart of a southern man beats fastest and "what" this heart is capable of carrying during the years allotted to it. The collection covers poems from 2016 to 2023, a period of time marked by premonitions of inevitable change, the experience of great loss, and the need to learn to live and love in a changed reality.
PEN Ukraine has been compiling the list of books for eight years in a row. The current list includes prose and poetry novelties, translations, drama, nonfiction, works for children, art publications and humanities.
