Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung included Serhiy Zhadan in cutural figures of year rating

Ukrainian writer and poet Serhiy Zhadan took second place in the ranking of cultural figures of the year by one of the most authoritative German newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The first place in the ranking was taken by Iranian women who protest despite arrests and death sentences, and the winner of the Booker Prize in 1981, the American-British writer of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie, took the third place.

"FAZ named the cultural figures of the year. Rushdie and I support courageous Iranian women with our shoulders. It is honorable and responsible, thank you. And in general, of course, a wild year, what can I say…", Zhadan himself reacted to being included in the rating.

Commemorating Zhadan, the publication notes that with the start of a full-scale war, he became the face of the Ukrainian resistance:

"Until February 24, the day of the russian attack, he was the most famous Ukrainian writer of his generation, but since then, he has become the face of the entire Ukraine, which resists. From this resistance, Zhadan speaks not only to the world, reporting on horrors and crimes against humanity, but first of all, he speaks to his people".

Also, the compilers of the rating emphasize Zhadan's charisma.

"Whoever describes Serhiy Zhadan at war at a safe distance risks resorting to misleading pathos: this story is simply too good to have a bad ending. But then Zhadan himself sharply breaks out of this pathos with his speeches and pushes back into bitter reality with his words," the newspaper writes.

We will remind you that earlier this year, Zhadan became a laureate of the German Hannah Arendt Prize for political thinking and the Peace Prize from German book publishers.