Maria Prymachenko
Author Profiles

About the Author:

1. photo by Yuri Rost. Mariia Pryimachenkoee.jpg!Portrait
photo by Yurii Rost
Maria Prymachenko
Bolotnya village in the Ivankiv Raion, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine

Maria Prymachenko (Ukrainian: Приймаченко Марія Оксентіївна) (1908–1997) was a Ukrainian village folk art painter, representative of naïve art. She is famous for her drawings, embroidery, and painting on ceramics.

Maria was a peasant woman. She was born and spent her whole life in the village of Bolotnya in the Ivankiv Raion, Kiev Oblast, situated only 30 km (19 mi) from Chernobyl.

Іn her childhood Maria was taken ill with polio, and this painful disease influenced the girl’s life.

In 1966, Prymachenko was awarded the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared that 2009 was the year of Prymachenko. A street in Kyiv and a minor planet are both named after her. Pablo Picasso once said, after visiting a Prymachenko exhibition in Paris, “I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian.”

Bookshelf
Naza s book
by Naza Semoniff

A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.

Version 1.0.0
by Nina Kossman

 

A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” -Ilya Kaminsky

Olga Stein cover
by Olga Stein

A collection of poems by Olga Stein.

Naza image
by Naza Semoniff

This isn’t self-help. It’s not a parody either. It’s something stranger and smarter: a satirical, uncategorizable book about belief, leadership, algorithmic power, and the performance of divinity in modern life.

Videos
Play Video
EastWest Literary Forum Bilingual Poetry & Prose Reading. July 13, 2025.
Length: 2 hrs. 08 min