IRENA KARPA
Irena Karpa is a Ukrainian writer, journalist and rock star, currently living in Paris. Unafraid of tackling taboo topics, her books are hugely successful and often controversial in her homeland. Her new novel, the psychological thriller Тільки нікому про це не кажи (Just Don’t Tell Anyone About It, 2022) follows a Ukrainian photographer named Margot living in Paris and addresses domestic violence, rape and bullying. Karpa’s novels remain untranslated in English, but Anglophone readers will no doubt have the chance to read her work in the near future.
Interview by Kate Tsurkan
Portrait by Vika Krol
Kate Tsurkan Many Ukrainian writers are being asked how the invasion has disrupted their creative process. I know you recently taught a course on how to use writing as a form of therapy during wartime or difficult situations in general. How has that been going?
Irena Karpa As my therapist always tells me, it’s important to do things for yourself. Usually it’s a form of self-care, like booking a massage, but for me, that also includes writing. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. When the invasion started it felt like a luxury to write, like a kind of forbidden pleasure that made it easier to get through the awful news of the day. I wanted to share this feeling with others so I created a therapeutic-writing course. I explained to my students, “Look, this is a great way to deal with all those heavy emotions you’re feeling right now: survivor’s guilt, loss, fear, uncertainty, all of it.” I also donated 30% of the income generated by the course to the Ukrainian Army. It has been really rewarding to read the texts that my students wrote. At the start of the course, many of them were shy and thought that their lives were uninteresting or not worth writing about, but eventually, they understood that we all have a story to tell. When you choose to write about something personal – even if nobody else will read it – you suddenly become the author of your life. You regain the control over your emotions that you thought you’d lost. It’s like yoga for the mind. While I was giving lectures and reading their texts I was also working on my own writing; I had to finish editing my latest novel. Of course, there was a brief period at the beginning of the invasion where I struggled to get work done. We all did. How could we not? I used to be really active on social media, but I no longer saw any sense in it. I made sure to write down what I was feeling, even if it was only a few sentences. In some cases it was – and still is – important for us Ukrainians to defend our position to the world, especially when Russian propaganda is so widespread. Then one day I started to write fiction again and the feeling was indescribable. Now I’m writing a novel about the war and how ordinary women’s relationships are impacted by it: volunteers, the wives of soldiers, refugees and so on. I really want it to have a happy ending. I’m a sucker for American films where everything manages to work out for the characters in the end.
KT What about stories that are just too painful or difficult to write? Do you think they exist?
IK Writing – good writing – requires you to psychologically strip naked. If you can’t, then you shouldn’t bother doing it. Or at least find another topic to write about. I’d like to think that my best book has yet to be written, the kind that will take some time to complete and perhaps even a little personal sacrifice. I would have to close myself off completely from the outside world to do it. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’m capable of this, at least not in the foreseeable future. I have kids, a dog, friends and lots of other personal obligations. I need to make money somehow. So I really admire writers who can make stories that are purely fictional. For me, it’s a totally different approach – I work with living materials.
KT How do you find time to write with all of your personal obligations? I like to joke with people that I haven’t finished my first novel yet because I’m learning how to make holubtsi [stuffed cabbage], and once I become a good Ukrainian housewife, I can return to being a writer again.
IK That’s a great story. I find something really poetic about passages of writing that describe something so normal like making a cup of tea – or, in your case, holubtsi. This act is already familiar to the reader, so it wakes up their senses. Reading becomes an even more immersive act. It’s important to write when your emotions are fresh – editing comes later. I would not take a break from writing if I was in your situation. Even if you’re not writing that novel you’re keeping your mind sharp. As for the story of an American girl who moves to Ukraine, marries a Ukrainian guy and immerses herself in the language, culture and traditions – well, I would read that. At least write down for yourself what you’re feeling during all of this.
KT You’re probably right. But what about you? How do you do it? Do you have to wait for the kids to finish their homework and get to bed before you open your laptop?
IK No, I need a glass of wine at the end of the day! I’m too tired to get any writing done. My best time to write is in the morning. I think the most productive I’ve been lately was during a trip to visit my friend in Italy this past summer. Another friend of mine, who is also a writer, was there, too. She was in the process of editing her new novel and we were reading our texts to each other, offering feedback and so on. It’s great to have someone who will be brutally honest with you and help you see your text from a cinematographic angle. They can point out things that are easy for you to miss because you’re too deep in the text. I’m absolutely incapable of getting writing done at home in Paris. When I have a deadline I go to a cafe, switch off my phone and tell myself, “Alright, you are working from 8 until 11, no excuses.”
KT Let’s talk about France for a moment. You wrote a text for Vanity Fair where you described what it was like dealing with French misconceptions of Ukrainians, such as the myth pushed by Putin’s regime that Ukraine is run by Nazis, or arguing with the French far right on national television who were promoting the Russian cause. Could you go more into that?
IK France is a complicated country, as you well know. There are some things they will always gravitate to, like ballet, and they don’t care about the call for Russian boycotts. Nor do they care about, say, Tchaikovsky’s Ukrainian origins. A certain faction of French society will always regard Ukrainians and Russians in the same light. Sometimes it’s very hard to come to terms with this. I considered making a French-language podcast about Ukrainian culture to try and educate people, but it’s a matter of finding the right team and funding. French culture ultimately has a rather internal focus and their literature is elevated above all others in the school curriculum. My French husband, who is well-read, was unfamiliar with Charles Bukowski’s work until I introduced him. So if certain American authors are not widely read when they’re already considered part of the Western canon, I am a bit pessimistic about the chances of Ukrainian authors in translation. Andrey Kurkov is an exception. He speaks French and his books are quite popular there. Currently, Ukrainians have a better chance at getting their books translated in Poland or one of the Baltic countries. Hopefully, the market will grow. It’s a question of good cultural managers – and translators, of course…
KT What you say about the French and their relationship to literature is interesting. I’m a trained scholar of 19th-century French literature, and for me, it beats all other countries for this period in terms of writers. But I’m pretty underwhelmed by contemporary French writers. I like some of Michel Houellebecq’s books – especially Submission [2015], which is brilliant – but his popularity in countries like the US has always perplexed me a little. He’s so bleak.
IK I really loved his work when I was younger and even wrote about it in my master’s thesis, but now I just want to be happy! It’s hard to read something when there’s so much contempt, even if the writing is good.
KT Journalists have long labelled him as the enfant terrible of French literature. I noticed that some have applied this label to you in the context of Ukrainian literature. Would you agree?
IK I try not to pay too much attention to labels; no writer should. These days I’m such a normal person, though. I don’t even dye my hair crazy colours anymore! Even when I was young and a little wild I never did things like, you know, [accidentally] bite the head off a bat on stage like Ozzy Osbourne. A lot of people don’t want to have their outlook on life questioned or experience even the slightest bit of discomfort. It’s much easier for them to label you or just outright dismiss you. Unfortunately, this applies not only to writers. I had to deal with a lot of negative stereotypes as a Ukrainian woman when I first moved to France in late 1995. I was working as a diplomat and even had my own car and a driver. None of that mattered, nor did my previous literary accomplishments. If your books haven’t been translated into French, then they might as well not exist. These days, writers have to promote themselves a lot more on social media. I’m not very good at it, to be honest. I prefer to focus on writing a good book with the hope that it’s enough for readers to find their way to me. Readers will either enjoy it or they won’t. The more sincere you are, the likelier people will naturally flock to your work.
KT In many respects Ukraine is still a pretty traditional and conservative country. When you were just starting out in literature and music, did you have to fight that inhibition? Was it a kind of motivation to create art?
IK It was pretty helpful for me, actually. If my parents had showered me with praise during my childhood I never would have become the person I am today. I probably would have gone on to marry a dentist and get a job in the tax-inspection office – nothing against dentists or tax inspectors, of course. They do a great service to society; it’s just not the life for me. It’s in my nature to protest and act out. When I was younger, even writing and performing in Ukrainian was kind of taboo because Russian was so much more commonplace in Ukrainian society. Artists who chose to work in Ukrainian were rejecting the cultural legacy that Russia had been trying for generations to impose on us. And there I was using our precious “nightingale language” [Ukrainians’ term for their language due to its melodic sound] to talk about things like sex and drugs. I even ended up on the cover of some Orthodox newspapers with my face plastered under some headlines like “ANTI-CULTURE”. It was pretty funny to me at the time because I was never provocative for the sake of being provocative. Thankfully, such outrage is less common in Ukraine these days. Sometimes it’s necessary to question what is considered “normal” and push boundaries a little. Those are the makings of a healthy society. ◉