British writer and journalist Lily Hyde will present a Ukrainian language edition of her book ‘Dream Land’ on 14 May in Kyiv.

The event is dedicated to the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people from their historic homeland, and is supported by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the Kyiv City State Administration. This action is jointly organized by the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, the Community of Crimean Tatars in Kiev, the British Ukrainian Society, and Duliby Publishing House.

May 2014 marks the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people from their historic homeland to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The late 1980s saw the beginning of a massive return of the Crimean Tatar people to Crimea, Ukraine. Their repatriation has not gone painlessly however, and it took a lot of patience and hard work for Crimean Tatars to get back on their feet in the land of their ancestors. With the events of the present day, it seems as if the history repeats itself once again – many Crimean Tatars are again forced to leave their homeland.

Lily Hyde is a British writer and journalist who spent 10 years working in Ukraine and undertook dozens of interviews about the deportation and repatriation of the Crimean Tatars. Based on those interviews, Ms Hyde wrote a novel called ‘Dream Land’ which was published in the UK by Walker Books in 2008. The novel was later translated and published in French (Naïve livres, 2011) and Crimean Tatar (Thesis, 2013) languages. The Ukrainian edition of the book has now been published by Duliby Publishing House with financial support from a renowned Ukrainian politician and diplomat Igor Ostash.

The presentation of the book will take place on 14 May at 7-8pm at the Mystetskyi Arsenal National Cultural-Art and Museum Complex located at 10-12 Lavrska Street in Kyiv. The guests of this event will include major Ukrainian politicians and representatives of foreign diplomatic missions, as well as prominent figures from the world of literature, arts and sciences. This action is conceived as a charitable initiative aiming to gather funds in support of various Crimean Tatar initiatives.

Source: British Ukrainian Society