Svitlana Yakovenko

As a cookbook author, Svitlana Yakovenko is probably best known for her award-winning “Taste of Ukraine: Rustic Cuisine from the Heart of Ukraine”. This impressive collection includes about 350 recipes of authentic Ukrainian dishes accompanied by photographs and articles. Gathering materials for her cookbooks, Svitlana travelled to many places within Ukraine in search of traditional and almost forgotten recipes, customs and rituals. In 2016, she travelled to Ukraine from Australia, where she currently resides, with the sole purpose to attend and record a true Hutsul wedding. This magnificent event took place in the heart of the Carpathian Ukraine – Verkhovyna. In creating each cookbook, Svitlana researches ethnographic and historical manuscripts, in search of descriptions of forgotten dishes or interesting information. Svitlana’s current series, “Tradition on a Plate”, a collection of Ukrainian recipes, tells about Ukrainian folk feast days and special family occasions through its cuisine. In addition to writing cookbooks, Svitlana is also a reputable translator of Ukrainian-language literature into English. She translates both fiction and non-fiction. So far, whether by chance or fortune, most of her fiction translations are works belonging to the mystical Gothic genre. Her latest work, “The Witches of Kyiv and Other Gothic Tales, by Orest Somov”, includes a foreword by a prominent scholar in the field, Dr Svitlana Krys, and received its due acclaim amongst the many fans of Gothic genre and Ukrainian literature. In 2016, Svitlana Yakovenko was appointed to a six-month Research Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, in a program established by the Ukrainian Studies Foundation in Australia, and the State Library of Victoria.