Irene Zabytko
was born and raised in Chicago. A bilingual, first generation Ukranian-American who traveled to Ukraine many times to teach English as a second language and to visit friends and family who live in Chernobyl. Her MFA is from Vermont College and now lives and works as a freelance writer in Florida.

Her first novel, The Sky Unwashed, was selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program, and was chosen by the New England Booksellers Association as one of the best books of 2000.

I wanted to let ya'll know that I am on the air as the literary contributor for "The Arts Connection," an Orlando based radio program about the arts in Central Florida which airs on WMFE-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate.

Read Rebecca's Interview with this author.

The Sky Unwashed
ISBN: 1565122461 - 2000 Algonquin Books

In April 1986 in a farm village in the Ukraine, the air has a strong, strange metallic flavor; the animals become listless; the priest is absent for services & Marusia Petrenko's son does not return home after his shift at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl.

It's just an ordinary day in the village of Starylis where widow Marusia Petrenko awakens in her tiny house to hear her son Yurko & his wife Zosia arguing. Soon she rises to take care of her grandchildren, her garden & her prize milk cow in the shed.

Read a review of this book by Rebecca Brown, The Editor.

When Luba Leaves Home: A Profile in Stories
ISBN: 1565123328 - 2003 Algonquin Books

To follow up her intense first novel, The Sky Unwashed, Irene Zabytko has written a story collection exploring the core of emotion that links Ukrainian immigrants in 1960s Chicago.

In her second published work, narrated by Luba, the college age daughter of two Ukrainian scientists, the people who live on Wheat Street struggle with the values and pressures of a new world, but cannot break the common tie that binds them.


Read a review of this book by Rebecca Brown, The Editor.

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