Lviv BookForum 2026

Tim Marshall is a British journalist and author specialising in foreign affairs and international diplomacy, with three decades of experience covering conflicts such as the Balkan Wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Arab Spring. The author of several books that explain global affairs through the lens of geopolitics, Prisoners of Geography—in which he examines how geography shapes the reality of countries and regions—became a bestseller in 2015. Written a year after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, it offered insights into the forces driving the conflict. Eleven years later, Marshall has published a revised edition of the book, incorporating the events that have unfolded since then, from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to its growing alignment with authoritarian regimes. In conversation with Volodymyr Biehlov.

Charlotte Higgins is not a war correspondent but the chief culture writer of The Guardian. Yet in the autumn of 2022, seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she travelled to the country to understand how artists, writers, curators, and musicians were responding to the war. After several further visits, Higgins reflects on those experiences in Ukrainian Lessons, a book about a society defending not only its cities and borders, but also its memory, language, and cultural heritage. In conversation with Sasha Dovzhyk, she will discuss the artists documenting the conflict and the role of culture in preserving a sense of identity when a nation is forced to fight for its future.