Our monthly 'Meet the Haymaker' series shares stories of the change-makers at the heart of Hay Festival and the impact it has had on their lives. This month, get to know Lviv BookForum director, poet and essayist Ostap Slyvynsky.
What does Hay Festival Global mean to you?
The Hay Festival is a very important international platform that helps amplify voices from my native Ukraine on the global stage. For us, this is more important now than ever, because Ukraine – due to Russia’s full-scale war – is constantly in the global news cycle, but its own voice is not always heard. The fact that, thanks to Hay Festival, the voices of Ukrainian authors are woven into the global chorus and gain greater prominence through conversations with world-renowned authors from various countries is extremely important. This helps uphold truth and justice.
What’s your favourite Festival memory?
I remember very well a panel discussion in 2022 that the Hay Festival organized in collaboration with the Lviv BookForum. The panel featured British journalist Emma Graham-Harrison and Ukrainian cultural manager Diana Berg. At that time, the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war was not yet a memory, but a living reality. And Diana Berg recounted how she managed to escape from her occupied hometown of Mariupol. I remember how a silence fell after her speech, and I realised that silence, too, is a form of dialogue – if it is filled with empathy and a willingness to stand together. It was a moment of great warmth.
Have you ever changed your mind on something having been to a Hay Festival event?
A remote presence can be very vivid and intense – that’s what I found myself thinking during many of the joint online events organised in partnership with Hay Festival. And they can stir up a storm of emotions among the audience. Such were the conversations with Salman Rushdie, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and many others.
Who was the best speaker or performer you saw on a Hay Festival stage?
The conversation I was fortunate enough to have with Bernardine Evaristo last year on the joint stage of the Hay Festival and the Lviv Book Forum was simply fantastic. It was a brilliant intellectual performance that remained, at the same time, incredibly sincere.
What advice do you have for a first-timer at the Festival?
Don't try to be everywhere at once. Listen to your intuition and focus on the events that can offer you the most personally. Amid the hustle and bustle of the festival, there are moments of deep human connection – and those are the most valuable.
Sum up Hay Festival Global in five words or less…
There will be three words and three adjectives for each of them. Intellectual stimulation, friendly provocation, joyful interaction.
Discover the full programme for Lviv BookForum 2026 and join free online here.