Alina Sarnatska

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Alina Sarnatska’s plays have been produced and presented by Schauspiel Stuttgart Schauspiel Stuttgart in Germany and Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre, and have travelled travelled across the United States, from Yale University to theatres in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. A playwright and prose writer with a PhD in social work, she is a Petro Jacyk Non-Residential Scholar at the University of Toronto and a former Jean-Jacques Rousseau Fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude. She was shortlisted for Poland’s Aurora Drama Award and received two awards at the ATYPOWO Festival in Wrocław.

She writes about people whose lives are often reduced to labels: soldiers and veterans, women affected by violence, queer people, civilians. Drawing on her background as a social worker and researcher, and on her own experience as a combat medic, she traces how large political events and social systems shape individual lives. Her central interest is the choices people make under pressure and what those choices cost them and their communities.

Her monologue Balance (2024) follows a woman who holds on to her inner equilibrium through dark humour and a series of ironic “self-soothing exercises”. The English version, edited by John Freedman, has been read at Yale and in Washington, D.C. Tribe of Waiting (2025) retells the myth of Penelope through the voices of women waiting for their partners to come home. It was staged staged in Lviv with a cast of actresses who share that experience. Her novel SCAM (2026) weaves together three voices of people who keep wanting ordinary things: the sea, love, a new job, a pair of gold earrings. Her non-fiction book Who United Love and Courage (2025) gathers the stories of LGBTQ+ veterans.

She is the author of nine plays and two books, and a member of PEN Ukraine. Her fellowships include the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Resilient Futures Fellowship and a joint fellowship of PEN Ukraine and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. She also mentors Veterans Theater, a drama training project for veterans and their families.

Ukrainian Drama Translations

Alina Sarnatska Alina Sarnatska

Visegrad Insight

Articles by Alina Sarnatska Articles by Alina Sarnatska

INDEX

The Svyatoshyn Station Limit The Svyatoshyn Station Limit

By Alina Sarnatska

The Guardian

Russia is raining death on Ukraine’s women and children. Our hands shake, but we keep going for love Russia is raining death on Ukraine’s women and children. Our hands shake, but we keep going for love

By Alina Sarnatska

NYU Prague Blog

Art and War: An Interview with Alina Sarnatska Art and War: An Interview with Alina Sarnatska

Written by Evan D’Souza

Editors at the NYU Prague Blog sat down with Sarnatska this week to learn more about the extraordinary journey that took her from NGO management in Kyiv to combat medicine on the front lines to playwriting for theatres across Eastern Europe.

Transitions

Interview: Playwright on the Ukrainian Front Interview: Playwright on the Ukrainian Front

By Laura Savoini

Ukraine’s Alina Sarnatska has transformed from volunteer combat medic to prominent playwright. Her writing offers an unfiltered look into the lives of those who volunteer to go to the front – rarest of all, the female experience.