When the Factor Druk printing press in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was hit by a Russian missile on May 23, it struck at the very heart of the embattled country’s literary culture. Seven employees were killed, 21 were injured, and 50,000 books were destroyed in the attack on the printing facility, the largest in Ukraine and one of the biggest in Europe. For Louisa Cameron, owner of Raven Books in Blackrock, Co Dublin, the news was particularly devastating, as she had visited Ukraine just weeks before to facilitate the delivery of a consignment of books and also meet with representatives of PEN Ukraine, which represents writers and publishers in the country.
Cameron says she felt she had to do something to support libraries in the country after speaking to some of her Ukrainian customers. “Through them, I got in touch with a few librarians in Ukraine to figure out what they needed and wanted. I brought 30 boxes of books for children, from tots to teens, for distribution to libraries in need.
” The books were sent on ahead and Cameron flew to Poland, crossing from there to Ukraine, with the help of Mariusz, who she describes as an “absolute hero”. “He took delivery of the books and about a week later picked me up at Krakow Airport and drove me across the border. His grandmother was Ukrainian so he has been back and forth delivering supplies.
"We stopped in a little village there first of all, they had a lovely library as part of a cultural centre. I met the librarian there who was incredible, and I showed her all the books. I pulled out Gulliver’s Travels, a beautiful illustrated edition from O’Brien Press and I just saw the expression change on her face.
She told me it was on their school curriculum.” Cameron then travelled to Lviv, where she visited another library. “The librarians I met were bursting with enthusiasm, creativity, and obvious care for the kids in their communities.
It was a joy to hand them bulging bags of books,” she says. Of the 50,000 books destroyed in the missile attack, a significant proportion were school textbooks which were due to be delivered for the new academic year. The US recently pledged to bridge the gap by financing the printing of more than three million schoolbooks.
Cameron says that while the Ukrainians she spoke to are weary of the ongoing conflict, their response to the attack shows their determination and resilience. “They are already working on getting the factory back up and running,” she says. According to the Ukrainian Book Institute, Russia has destroyed 172 libraries and nearly two million books since 2022.
“In the occupied areas, they are literally burning books, taking anything in the Ukrainian language and destroying it. The idea of it is just awful,” says Cameron. In the midst of this turmoil, Ukrainians have turned to reading in even greater numbers, something Cameron witnessed on her visit there.
“They have a very strong and rich literary culture of which they are very proud. It has always been important but there has been a massive cultural renaissance since February 2022. I visited a couple of bookshops in Kyiv which were amazing.
It was 8.30pm at night and the place was buzzing, full of young people. Kyiv has air defence, but since I left their power grids were hit which has led to rolling blackouts,” she says.
During her visit, Cameron also met Maksym Sytnikov, deputy executive director of the Kyiv-based chapter of PEN International, and handed over a letter of solidarity from PEN Ireland. In the attack, PEN Ukraine had lost the entire print run of a book, Words and Bullets, which was due to launch the following week. The event went ahead as scheduled, as Cameron poignantly puts it, a book launch without a book.
Cameron covered her own costs for the trip, and while some of the books that she delivered in Ukraine were donated, the crowdfunder to cover the costs of the rest is still ongoing; any amount over the target sum will go directly to PEN Ukraine for their support of the libraries, she says. She sees her visit and the donation of books as a small gesture but one that was greatly appreciated by all those she met in Ukraine. "Books in English may not be the most urgent thing the Ukrainian people need right now but it was what I was asked for and able to provide.
It may be only a tiny brightness in the darkness of war, but what a light it is to know that children thousands of miles away might find comfort in stories that started their journey in Ireland.”.
