Larysa Denysenko talks about the need for open discussion amidst the Ukrainian conflict

Bonnier Books UK has just published an English edition of Ukrainian children’s picture book Maya and Her Friends through its Studio Press imprint in hardback and e-book, with all profits from the sale of the book to be donated directly to Unicef.

First published in Ukraine in 2017, Maya and Her Friends is written by Ukrainian author, lawyer and activist Larysa Denysenko and illustrated by Masha Foya. Aimed at children aged six and older, it centres on nine-year-old Maya and her classmates, who all have different backgrounds, family structures and upbringings. Denysenko, who is currently living in Kyiv, is also a well-known TV and radio journalist as well as a member of Ukrainian PEN and a UN Goodwill Ambassador. The story was inspired by her experiences as a human rights activist. She explains: “It has always been strange to me why families where there are both a father and a mother, and where aggression is a part of relations, are called ‘complete families’. And why such families are accepted more in our country than those families where a child is raised by a single mother or grandmother, or a child is raised by a homosexual couple… That’s why I wrote a book about respect for all families, familiar and unusual, where children are loved. Because I consider such families to be correct and normal, and not one model approved by old traditions.”

I understand weapons so well now that I’m amazed at myself… This is not the most common knowledge for a children’s writer, but that’s how we live now

Helen Wicks, executive director for children’s trade at Bonnier Books UK, says her acquisition of the book began with “a casual conversation” in which c.e.o. Perminder Mann mentioned that Bonnier’s Finnish arm Tammi had signed the title. Wicks says: “When I started talking to Saara [Tiuraniemi, publisher at Tammi], I just became fascinated by this story, because the book itself has got such an incredible genesis.” Originally published by Ukrainian publishing house Vydavnytstvo, co-founded by Liliya Omelyanenko and Eliash Strongowski, Maya and Her Friends is the only Ukrainian children’s book to mention same-sex families and, as such, it was considered scandalous by some in its home country. However, according to Wicks it “became a bestseller and it gave rise to a lot of debate within Ukrainian society”.

She continues: “We like to regard ourselves as quite a value-driven company and we are passionate about supporting freedom of speech. It seemed like this was a really good opportunity, not only to work in a very collaborative and agile way with other Bonnier companies, but also to do something profoundly worthwhile… And so began this incredible journey.”

Wicks contacted Tiuraniemi just a few days after Ukraine was invaded and was put in touch with Omelyanenko. She tells me that Omelyanenko’s response to her approach brought tears to her eyes. “She said: ‘Thank you so much for your kind offer… You cannot appreciate how much we appreciate support from you and from other countries. And for us, as publishers, it is so very important to realise that we can be helpful in our sphere of influence.’” Wicks adds: “We all became very determined to do the deal quickly. We knew we had to move fast.”

Moving fast

Two days later, Wicks and Omelyanenko had reached an agreement and Bonnier managed to get the paper and board cover material for the book gifted, with the title going to press around a week later. The colours on the book’s cover have been changed to those of the Ukrainian flag and Denysenko has provided a new foreword, written in the midst of Russia’s attacks, which is included in Ukrainian as well as English. The names of the children within the story and Foya’s illustrations have remained unchanged, although the text has been updated in places and explanations for events, such as Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, have been included.

There have been many logistical challenges along the way. Wicks says: “It’s never easy to crash a title into a publishing programme with the speed that we did, but it was necessary. We’re talking to all our key retailers all the time and doing whatever we can just to get the copies moving.” Bonnier has donated the book widely, with copies going to the National Literacy Trust’s Welcome Reading Packs, the Bradford Ukrainian Community Centre and US-based non-profit book donor programme Anaik’s Loving Library.

It is an opportunity to get acquainted with your neighbours, with different cultures, and to tell them about yourself, about kinship and difference

“And,” Wicks adds, “it became a bit of a quest to get it published in as many languages as possible.” While she admits that it has been “a challenge” to get a US publisher to pick the story up, the interest from European publishers has been “phenomenal”, with rights already sold in Finland, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands (Frisian-language), Estonia and Iceland to date. “We were lucky that we went to Bologna a couple of weeks after I just about managed to get this off to press, so we were able to promote the book there… We just want this message, which has huge resonance now, to have as much publicity as possible.”

Spreading love

Explaining what she wants readers to take away from the book, Denysenko tells me: “It is important to me that adults talk to children about how the world works. Why every child and every family is important. Why someone lives in their own way and it is different from us. It is an opportunity to get acquainted with your neighbours, with different cultures, and to tell them about yourself, about kinship and difference.” Wicks feels that the story’s message about tolerance and acceptance will ensure it is “well-received and widely read”.

She describes working on the book as “a great exercise in collaboration”, saying: “I think there’s so much that we can learn [from each other]. And I think it’s learning that when the occasion calls for it, we can work that quickly and we can be that collaborative.” An important motivation for her was reassuring Omelyanenko that “she could work to spread the word in her professional capacity”, a connection which she believes has “made such a difference at a time when the country has been just ripped apart”.

Reflecting on what life is currently like for Ukraine’s literary community, Denysenko reports that many of her colleagues, such as the writers Artem Czech and Artem Chapai, “are at war now”. Several more friends who are writers, directors and poets have had to leave their homeland, while the International Book Arsenal Festival, which was due to take place in Kyiv in May, has been cancelled. She feels that the country needs to be able to defend itself in order “to be able to meet our friends and relatives when chestnuts bloom, to write, to publish and to read books with our children”.