Valeriy Puzik

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Valeriy Puzik works across an unusually wide range of mediums. His documentary shorts – including Street (2010), Fragments (2014), and Sharp Pain (2017) – and his video-poetry have traveled internationally. His film-poem with texts by Oksana Zabuzhko Oksana Zabuzhko, Farewell Among the Stars, opened the Read My World festival in Amsterdam in 2016. As a screenwriter, he co-wrote the film and web series Our Kitties Our Kitties (2020) with director Volodymyr Tykhyi. In 2026, a pre-premiere staging of his play Ghosts in Branches (2024), titled Heaven to Earth Plus Heaven to Earth Plus and directed by Sandra Topolska, was presented in London — its first full stage production.

His prose collections Stray Dogs and Monolith (both 2018) portray men returning home changed by experience they can't fully leave behind. His essay collection With Love – Dad! (2023) takes the form of a letter from a father to his adult son. Alongside his books, Puzik paints directly on spent ammunition boxes, work now held in private collections abroad, and continues directing and writing for the screen.

Ukrainian Drama Translations

Ghosts in Branches Ghosts in Branches

Translators: John Freedman, Natalia Bratus

A village after the Russian occupation in the Kherson region. The soldiers settle in the abandoned house of a local woman. Strange and terrible things begin to happen. Kostya dies, an Angel appears, who takes the souls of the dead and takes them to the afterlife, as well as three girls, whether they are ghosts or witches – no one knows. They come to those who are about to die and talk to them.

London Ukrainian Review

‘All Hearts Are Born for Beating’: Poetry by Ukraine’s Defenders ‘All Hearts Are Born for Beating’: Poetry by Ukraine’s Defenders

Translator: Larissa Babij

Ukrainian wartime poetry transcends literary convention. These poems by defenders Eva Tur, Vasek Dukhnovskyi, and Valeriy Puzik embody a culture being forged in the fight for its survival — verse written between battles, resounding with courage born of conscious choice and civic conviction.

Looming

March, 2025 March, 2025

Translator: Anna Verschik

Valeriy Puzik's poems were published in the Estonian literary journal Looming. Puzik's work appeared in the issue alongside works by other Estonian authors, including Doris Kareva, Maarja Kangro, and others.

Essays on War

After Occupation After Occupation

Author: Valeriy Puzik

Translaters: Yulia Lyubka, Kate Tsurkan

Chytomo

Valeriy Puzik: The war is when everyone does what it takes Valeriy Puzik: The war is when everyone does what it takes

Author: Natalya Korniyenko

A military in the wartime is not just about a beautiful uniform, thankfulness of the people and heroic elimination of occupants. Quite often it is all about discomfort, fear, pain and losses. We have spoken to Valeriy Puzik, a writer, artist and director about the duality of war and the people in it, how to stick to “yourself” in war conditions and why it is important to write about current events even if you find it senseless.

Intent

"Who We Were": Speaking for Those Who Did Not Return "Who We Were": Speaking for Those Who Did Not Return

Author: Maria Galia