Iren Zabytko, an American writer, visited Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University on 7 November. The writer grew up in a Ukrainian suburb of Chicago – “Ukrainian Village”. There she has finishes St .Nicholas School. Irene’s parents wanted her to become a doctor, but the desire to write has not left her since childhood.
Iren worked as a journalist, teacher of English language and literature in Vermont, Florida. She taught English at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Drohobych State Pedagogical University. Currently, she is working at Nizhyn State University. She is interested in Ukrainian and Russian Literature and most of all she likes reading, for example, Dostoievkyi, Chekhov, Turheniev, and Shevchenko.
About Mykola Hohol, her favorite writer, she says the following “Taras Shevchenko is loved in Ukraine to distraction, but Mykola Hohol is known all over the world. This man has changed the conception of the world of everyone, who read his works.” “He is a weird genius,” that’s how Iren Zabytko calls him.
At the meeting, the writer read the first chapter of her book about Mykola Hohol. Moreover, she advised to read the book about school years of Mykola Hohol, written by her friends from St. Petersburg. Also, Iren gave the students her e-mail for consultations concerning questions about journalism and writing.
At the end of this event, Iren Zabytko was asked many questions, students did not want this meeting to end. Students and lecturers will remember American Ukrainian for a long time.
