In his 24 years, he is the author of five books that are popular in both Ukraine and Europe. In particular, his novels “Arche” and “Cult” were published in Poland and Germany. Translations of Deresh’s works are currently being prepared for print in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, and other countries. He is a prominent representative of the new generation of Ukrainians who will set the path for their country in the coming years. We would like to find out what the new generation live and breathe.

– Lyubko, your works have long runs in Ukraine. In your young years, you are already a cult writer in your motherland, and now you are enjoying success with European book publishers. How did you start this career and what is the secret of such success?

– I believe the key secret of my success is my total lack of interest in the further destiny of my books. I notice that the more interest I have in the results of my creative work the less I produce as a writer, and the other way around. This is an illogical but effective explanation. It works where the most perfect logical explanations fail. Although I have heard so many various opinions about the roots of my success … from working out a “story recipe from Deresh” to the gossip that my PR manager is Volodymyr Yeshkilev, the writer and mystic.

– How do you see your reader. Is this the youth or the older people who are also interested in your books?

– This is mostly the youth, to be exact, the young people who are within the UKRAINIAN (I intentionally emphasize this word) literary-cultural process. I say UKRAINIAN because there are several parallel youth cultures developing in the country and using different languages. My young readers are the students, school children, and people who feel an affinity for contemporary Ukrainian culture, seeing a reflection of the present in it, and finding feelings close to them in this culture. There is also another group of readers whom I call “professional” readers. Reading for them is a way of life, and they cover the entire body of modern Ukrainian literature with their reading. There is also a much smaller group of readers consisting of older people who get my books from various sources; from their children, through their interest in youth literature, through the recommendations of their friends, etc. To be honest, the most interesting for me is dealing with these latter readers. In the case of students, I usually hear the same stereotype answer to the question of why they chose my books, whereas older people usually have entire stories behind this.

– You come from the Lviv region, which is in western Ukraine. How does the reader in eastern Ukraine see you, since there is so much talk about a mental and language-based division of Ukraine into east and west?

– The division you are talking about does exist. As I already said, there are parallel cultures that can be so entirely encapsulated within the circle of their own interests that they cannot even see any idols existing in neighboring cultural environments. Once I read some Russian-language blog on the Web whose author expressed his surprise over the fact that, as it turns out, not only republications of Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrayinka can exist in Ukrainian, but there is quite up-to-date Ukrainian literature created by contemporary writers, and that there are quite a few of them! I believe we should discover differences in mentalities by studying the differences in values and standards rather than the language or geographic division. Actually, I find like-minded people not only in Lviv but also in Luhansk and Donetsk. There are also isolated environments in these cities where people do not see the modern Ukrainian culture. Such environments are not “inferior” with regard to the choice of their cultural values. They are just separated from the modern Ukrainian culture by prejudices or inertia of thought which tells them that there is nothing going on in the neighboring environment and everything is frozen at the level of 1989. And the like-minded people, the people for whom the Ukrainian culture is alive and contemporary, welcome me at least with understanding if not with a burst of joy.

– You communicate with foreigners a lot. Do they ask you about Ukraine?

– As Jacques Vache wrote in a letter to Andre Breton, “Nothing kills a personality as much as the need to represent some country.” I agree with this, as in the end, the communications of two persons representing different countries comes to a mutual breaking of stereotypes and replacement of existing clich?s with new ones (if we talk about so-called “mentality”), which I simply take  as empty talk. I try to talk to another person namely as to a person rather than a part of some country, and behave accordingly, because personal heart-to-heart contact for me weighs much more than abstract talk about geographical places.

– What are you working on now?

– It is a story about a young composer who is writing a symphony for the Euro-2012 football championship when the end of time is predicted to come according to the ancient Maya calendar.

– Are any European publishers planning to release your new works?

– The most fruitful is my cooperation with the German publishing house Suhrkamp, which released my third book this spring and is preparing the fourth book for print. Also, translations of my works will be out soon in Italy and a little later in France. But this is Europe. In Russia, strange as it may seem, no translation of my works has appeared in print so far.