Anna Gruver
- Ukraine -
Anna Gruver is a Ukrainian writer, poet and translator. A member of PEN Ukraine. Born in Donetsk, where she lived until aged 17. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, she lived in Kharkiv. Gruver is the author of the novels Her Empty Places (2022) and Real Estate (2025).
She is the author of the poetry book Nothing Was Found at Your Request, 2019. Her poems were translated into English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Estonian etc. She translates essays and contemporary poetry from Ukrainian into Polish and vice versa. Anna translated the book by Katie Ferris /boysgirls/ from English into Ukrainian (2021) and in collaboration with Vasyl Makhno a poetry collection by Bohdan Zadura, Simple Truths (2024).
In 2025, she was among the laureates of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Award. She is an editor, compiler and author of comments to the memory book of the scholar, religious expert and prisoner of conscience Ihor Kozlovsky, Free in Captivity (2025). Lives in Kyiv.
Anna Gruver (b. 1996) is a Ukrainian writer and translator originally from Donetsk. After living in Kharkiv, she relocated to Lviv following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
She is the author of the poetry collection Nothing Was Found at Your Request (2019). Her poems have appeared in the magazines SHO, FLetter, as well as on digital platforms such as Litcentr and Soloneba. In addition to poetry, Anna has published two novels: Her Empty Places (2022) and Real Estate (2025).
Gruver studied at the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow, but voluntarily left after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war and began studying Judaic culture at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She initially wrote in Russian, but later transitioned to Ukrainian.
“Several times I stopped writing for long periods (…), and it was terrifying. I felt numb, devoid of linguistic freedom. As if words had chained me to meanings and forms, and I couldn’t break free. In 2014, after a long silence, poems started coming to me in Ukrainian. It was a strange, uncontrollable process — it’s hard to explain from inside a bilingual consciousness. Ukrainian set me free. I realized that such inner freedom, honesty, and openness had not been possible before. Since then, I have deliberately and consciously written poetry exclusively in Ukrainian,” Gruver shared in an interview with Volodymyr Korkunov.
Nothing Was Found at Your Request is divided into three sections, containing poems about places significant to the author’s life, memories of past experiences, and reflections on events yet to come. The first chapter, in particular, is dedicated to refugees. Gruver’s writing is often marked by vivid visual imagery and an autobiographical voice.The theme of war occupies a particularly significant place in her poetry, shaped in part by her personal history: her hometown, Donetsk, has been under Russian occupation since 2014. The experience of forced displacement permeates much of her work, as she reflects on ideas of home, belonging, and one’s connection to place. These are not abstract meditations but deeply embodied questions — shaped by memory, loss, and the shifting meanings of territory in times of conflict.
Her poems do not aim to offer answers or manifestos; instead, they create space for quiet contemplation. Despite the often dramatic subject matter, Anna maintains a meditative tone — one that gently draws the reader to turn inward and explore the depths of their own self. In this way, her poetry resonates beyond the immediate context of war, offering something universally human: the search for grounding in a fractured world.
“The external ‘geographism’ captures feelings and visions — there’s a kind of breakdown of geodesic and gravitational laws. Anna’s deep interest in photography is clearly reflected in her writing style. Moreover, she believes that the collision, crossing, and blending of genres may be the only way forward today,” writes poet and critic Natalia Belchenko in her review of Gruver’s debut collection (ShoIzdat).
In her prose, Anna continues to explore personal trauma intertwined with major historical events. Her novel Her Empty Places unfolds across two timeframes, drawing subtle parallels, similarities, and connections between them.In his review, literary scholar Taras Pastukh writes: “Her Empty Places is a coming-of-age novel, bound up with the discovery of (true) memory and the formation of (deep) identity rooted in Jewish familial tradition. It is written in the mode of women’s writing and interlaces themes of art, nature, and war.”
Gruver’s latest novel, Real Estate, continues her exploration of memory in difficult historical periods, focusing more intently on the experience of emigration — a topic that has become particularly resonant for Ukrainians in recent years.
Anna Gruver’s texts have been translated into German, English, French, Czech, Estonian, Lithuanian, and several other languages. In 2025, a collection of her poems Po prostu chcę podzielić się chwilą, translated by Aneta Kamińska, was also published in Poland. Gruver also translates essays and contemporary poetry from Polish and English. Notable among her translations is boysgirls (2021), a short story collection by Katie Farris, and Simple Truths, a poetry collection by prominent Polish poet, translator, and literary critic Bogdan Zadura. The latter is the result of a collaborative translation effort by Anna Gruver and Vasyl Makhno. Zadura’s ironic texts, written over the course of several years, are often tragic in tone and rich in allusions, veiled quotations, and references to historical events. Recognizing them becomes a particular pleasure for the reader and an essential, solitary journey the reader takes with the book. The translators aimed to preserve Zadura’s voice and make his work more accessible to Ukrainian readers. This project can also be seen as part of Anna Gruver’s ongoing work to deepen the dialogue between Ukrainian and Polish literary cultures, especially as she translates not only from Polish into Ukrainian, but also from Ukrainian into Polish.
She was one of the editors of the poetry magazine Paradigma, whose final issue was published in 2021. The magazine featured works by Ukrainian poets such as Ostap Slyvynsky, Iryna Shuvalova, Daryna Chupat, Serhii Zhadan, Yuliia Musakovska, Lesyk Panasiuk, and many others, along with translations, interviews, essays, and book reviews.
Gruver is also the editor of the book Free While Imprisoned, dedicated to the Ukrainian religious scholar, philosopher, and prisoner of conscience Ihor Kozlovskyi, who was held captive by Russian occupiers in Donetsk.
As both a poet and translator, Anna Gruver remains an active participant in Ukraine’s literary life. She has taken part in numerous events, including the Displaced Generation poetry reading series at the International Book Arsenal Festival, the Poetry DJ Set program at the Translatorium literary and translation festival (2021), Voices of Ukraine, a Ukrainian-Israeli reading series, and the Ukrainian Poetry in Translation Reading hosted by PEN America and the University of Pennsylvania.
She has also been awarded the Third Prize from the Smoloskyp Publishing House Literary Award, an annual recognition in Ukraine for outstanding debut manuscripts in a range of literary categories, and has received the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature Prize.
Poetry
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Mahistratska street / вулиця Магістратська
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3 Nyzhniokurhanska st. – 3 Louis Marshal st. / вул. Нижньокурганська, 3 – вул. Луї Маршал, 25
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#sheisoneofus / #одназнас
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#sheisnoneofus / #жодназнас
