Halyna Vdovychenko

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Halyna Vdovychenko is a Ukrainian author of novels, short fiction, and children's books, who has been nominated three years running – 2024, 2025, and 2026 – for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, one of the world's most significant honours in children's literature. Her books and excerpts from her works have been translated into Latvian, Lithuanian, German, Slovak, Georgian, Chinese, Belarusian, English, Czech, and Japanese. Translations into Croatian, Turkish, and Macedonian are currently in preparation.

Her long-running 36 and 6 Cats series – following a houseful of stray cats who talk their way into a reluctant landlady's life – has become one of her most widely travelled works, translated abroad (including into Latvian, where it won a national children's book prize) and issued in Braille.

She writes across two registers: intimate novels for adults and children's fiction. Mariupol Process (2015) tells a love story and The Most Important Thing Comes at the End (2019) follows a couple thirty-five years into their relationship, examining what it takes to forgive and truly see each other. Her picture children’s book The Owl Who Wanted to Become a Lark (2018) was selected for the international White Ravens catalogue in 2019. 

The 36 and 6 Cats series has been published in Latvian Latvian by Latvijas Mediji (Latvia), Lithuanian Lithuanian by Tyto alba (Lithuania), German German by Mauke Verlag (Germany), Kartvelian Kartvelian by Sulakauri Publishing (Sakartvelo), Belarusian by Knihazbor (Belarus), and Chinese Chinese by Beijing Publishing Group (China).

Published titles include 36 and 6 Cats, 36 and 6 Cats Detectives, 36 and 6 Companion Cats, and The Cat House.

Croatian publisher Jesenski i Turk has acquired the rights to 36 and 6 Cats, 36 and 6 Cats Detectives, 36 and 6 Companion Cats, 36 and 6 Rescue Cats, and The Cat House.

Cudna Shuma (North Macedonia) has acquired the rights to 36 and 6 Cats.

Ephesus Publishing (Turkey) has acquired the rights to 36 and 6 Cats, 36 and 6 Cats Detectives, and 36 and 6 Dogs.

The Owl Who Wanted to Become a Lark has been published in Slovak Slovak by Slniečkovo (Slovakia), and in a bilingual Ukrainian–German Ukrainian–German edition by Slavicum Verlag (Germany). A Polish Polish edition has been published by Wydavnictwo Widnokrąg (Poland).