As international attention focuses on the Ukraine, the winner of the Shevchenko Foundation’s biennial Kobzar Literary Award, which celebrates Canadian literature with a “Ukrainian theme,” was announced last night at a ceremony in Toronto.

Playwright Diane Flacks, in collaboration with Andrey Tarasiuk and Luba Goy, took home the $25,000 prize for Simply Luba (Scirocco Drama). The production was first staged in 2012 at Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre.

In a press release, Shevchenko Foundation president Andrij Hladyshevsky says, “Ms. Goy’s views on Ukrainian and Canadian politics, her aspirations as a female Canadian actor, her views on motherhood, aging and meeting Viktor Yushchenko, president of an independent Ukraine, create a memorable and inspiring dramatic narrative.”

Jurors Joe Kertes, Frances Itani, Annabel Lyon, and Olive Senior selected Simply Luba from a shortlist of five titles. The four finalists, who each received $1,000, are: Erín Moure for her poetry collection The Unmemntioable (House of Anansi Press); Michael Mucz for his compendium of Ukranian-Canadian folk history Baba’s Kitchen Medicines (University of Alberta Press); Barbara Sapergia for her historical novel Blood and Salt (Coteau Books); and Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch for her middle-grade novel Making Bombs For Hitler (Scholastic Canada).

Click on the thumbnails for photos of the evening.