Galia Ackerman

Galia Ackerman
Галя Аккерман
Born1948 (age 75–76)
EducationUniversity of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne
Writing career
Occupation
  • Writer
  • translator
  • researcher
LanguageFrench, Russian
Genredocumentary, essay, research, Russian documentary translation
Notable works(In French) Traverser Tchernobyl
Le régiment immortel; la guerre sacrée de Poutine

Galina Ackerman or usually Galia Ackerman (Russian: Галя Аккерман) (born 1948) is a French-Russian writer, historian, journalist, translator, researcher at the University of Caen, specializing on Ukraine and Post-Soviet states. She was also a translator for slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.[1][2][3]

Biography

Galia Ackerman was born in 1948 into a Russian Jewish family. She holds a doctorate in history from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and is an associate researcher at the University of Caen.[4]

Crossing Chernobyl

Zone

In 1998, Galia Ackerman translated into French the 'Chernobyl Prayer' by Svetlana Alexievich, a documentary about the Chernobyl disaster. While working on the translation, she traveled in the poisoned territories called 'Zone' (short for Chernobyl Exclusion Zone), in Belarus, and interviewed local well-known personalities about the nuclear catastrophe.

When she published her gathered stories about 'Zone', the Center of Modern Art of Barcelona asked her in 2003 prepare an exhibition about 'Zone'. To prepare the materials for the Center of Modern Art, Galia Ackerman traveled from 2003 to 2006 in Ukraine. She co-worked with a museum about the catastrophe in Kyiv, met with local people, and gathered various artefacts like special clothes of recovery workers, various Geiger counters. As result, she talked with many local people, gathered much information, and wrote her first documentary in 2006 about 'Zone', but, as she said, it was just a pure history of the catastrophe.

Since then, Galia Ackerman used to travel in Ukraine, visited 'Zone', met local people and became a friend with Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko, who also often visited Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. So she decided to write a new story entitled 'Crossing Chernobyl' to tell her 20-year-long experience about Chernobyl, thoughts, mental pictures of Chernobyl. The book was published in France.[5]

Selected bibliography

Books

  • French: Traverser Tchernobyl; Premier Parallèle, 2016 (Crossing Chernobyl; Premier Parallèle, 2016)
  • French: Le régiment immortel; la guerre sacrée de Poutine; Premier Parallèle, 2019 (The Immortal Regiment; The Sacred War of Putin; Premier Parallèle, 2019)[6]

References

  1. ^ "Галя Аккерман (Galia Ackerman)". Inosmi (in Russian). Archived from the original on November 20, 2019.
  2. ^ "Galia Ackerman". CCCB. Archived from the original on November 21, 2019.
  3. ^ Поляковская, Елена (December 6, 2018). "Анна Политковская стала героиней спектакля парижского театра". Радио Свобода (in Russian). Archived from the original on December 7, 2018.
  4. ^ "Ma traversée de Tchernobyl o". Université Caen-Normandie (in French). Archived from the original on November 8, 2017.
  5. ^ "Читальный Зал: О жизни Чернобылем". Евреи Евразии (in Russian). April 4, 2018. Archived from the original on November 22, 2019.
  6. ^ Nougayrède, Natalie (April 25, 2019). "Zelenskiy's election proves Ukraine is a healthy democracy. Putin hates that". The Guardian. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
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