Video: Yeva Skalietska and Caroline Busher

It was our sincere pleasure to host 13-year-old Ukrainian author, Yeva Skalietska and Wexford-based children’s author Caroline Busher in St Peter’s Church, as part of our 2023 festival.

Yeva Skalietska is a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl who grew up living with her granny in Kharkiv, near the Russian border. She loves learning languages, bowling, playing the piano and painting.

On Thursday 24th February 2022, Yeva Skalietska was woken by the sound of explosions. Though there had been rumblings and rumours, few truly believed that war would break out between Russia and Ukraine. And yet – it did. What followed were twelve days in Ukraine that changed Yeva’s life forever.

You Don’t Know What War Is, a diary of her experiences of fleeing war in Ukraine and settling in Dublin.  Published in the UK by Bloomsbury (partnered with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency) and in the US by Union Square Publishers, the book has been translated into sixteen languages.

Introduced by Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, it has been compared to Anne Frank’s diary for its powerful insight into what conflict is like through the eyes of a child.

Caroline Busher is the Irish Times best-selling author and Irish Book Award nominated author. Her books include The Ghosts of Magnificent Children, The Girl Who Ate The Stars, The Legend of Valentine Sorrow and The Spectacular Library of Magical. 

 She is a Heritage Expert with the Heritage Council of Ireland is on the Poetry Ireland Writers in Schools Scheme. Caroline is also an arts in education practitioner and delivers Teacher Artist Partnership and BLAST projects with County Wexford Education Centre.

Yeva and Caroline’s session was incredibly emotional and inspiring and we are delighted to be able to share a recording of their event.