PEN Belarus has explored the literary map of the diaspora. Which countries and cities are marked there? What organizations contribute to the development of the literary process? Whose efforts keep it alive? Where do the enthusiasts come from? Can we say that an alternative literary community has emerged beyond Belarus? Where should one go, to whom and how should one turn to acquire a work of Belarusian literature—or to publish one’s own and offer it to readers?
In our research, we used open sources, but for security reasons, we decided not to publish the map. This is a thorough piece of work that helps us navigate the current literary landscape. If you need information related to Belarusian literature abroad or would like to add new points to the map, please write to us at [email protected].
We cannot share with you all the results of our work, so we asked our editor to tell about some of the most interesting discoveries. Welcome to this literary journey.
Part 1: The geography of inspiration, or the word that travels
It is worth remembering that our national book printing actually began abroad, in Prague. In 1517, the Polatsk-born European scholar and humanist Francysk Skaryna printed there the Psalter in Old Belarusian. In two years—23 books of the Old Testament! A successful launch of the first such project in the entire East Slavic space.
So in a certain sense, the emigrant’s fate is nothing new for Belarusian books. Nor is the scale, urgency, or demand for publishing activity in exile. The current situation of displacement, transborder creativity, and the forced expansion of the diaspora has pushed Belarusian literature beyond the canonical publishing, academic, and media formats. Before our eyes, it is becoming the engine of a new cultural space, where the classical notion of “institutions” does not always match the real state of affairs. Someone prints books at their own expense in a Lithuanian print shop, someone writes novels and poems in an artist residency in Berlin, someone records a podcast about Belarusian literature in a kitchen in Rome, someone organizes a festival in Podlasie, someone in Norway creates a Belarusian shelf in the local library, someone stages a play based on a new Belarusian work on a prominent stage in London, someone in New York starts an online magazine…
The database we have compiled makes it possible to see on the world creative map how actively the Belarusian literary space has developed since 2020. This space lives, is visualized, and is heard—actively, manifold, and in many locations around the globe.
If we were to light up little lamps or plant flags of our presence in different cities across this global territory of Belarusian writing, Poland would stand out the most: Warsaw, Bialystok, Gdańsk, Sopot, Łódź, Toruń, Szczecin, Poznań, Wrocław, Katowice, Lublin…
Then comes Germany on the map: Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Greifswald, Düsseldorf…
Across the Channel—Great Britain: London, Coventry, Cambridge…
Moving further into America: Washington, New York, Yale University, Ossining, San Francisco, San Antonio, Kensington…
An endless expanse, from Haifa in the south to Linderöd in the north.
In other words, we have a genuine literary globalization in the Belarusian version.
The capital of this foreign creative realm can probably be called Warsaw. Today, there are more than fifty places here in one way or another connected to the Belarusian literary process.
Vilnius is in second place: around thirty literary locations.
And the city closest to the Belarusian border—Bialystok—closes the leading trio with 22 markers.
Berlin has exactly half as many, taking a two-step lead over London.
Prague, Kraków, Wrocław are hot on their heels.
Altogether, on our LitMap there are dozens of cities from Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Great Britain, the USA, Canada—more than twenty countries!
This is not a toponymic list, but a testament: Belarusian literature lives wherever Belarusians have been forced to find themselves today—we have become witnesses to true literary globalization.
The most exotic point on the global LitMap is the town of Longyearbyen, on the Svalbard archipelago, just a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. In the state-of-the-art library, which is open 24/7, Belarusian books also stand on the shelves. During her creative residency there, Taciana Niadbaj worked on a book about the Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski. The book Ales was later published in Warsaw, but it was conceived and began at the very edge of the world, in the heart of the polar night. And here is another fact that seems made for this story: the publishing house that prepared Ales is called Polatsk Labyrinths.
Because Taciana is from Polatsk. Because Francysk Skaryna was from there too.
Five centuries later, across time and space, new works continue to come into the world in foreign cities—but in their own language, carrying Belarusian truth and mission. The Belarusian book lives not thanks to, but in spite of everything. As a symbol of resistance and memory, creativity and talent, strength and recognition.
Part 2. The rhythm of the community, or the voice that multiplies
On our global LitMap, there are over 200 points: publishing houses, bookstores, media platforms, literary awards, organizations, festivals, podcasts, libraries, research centers, blogs, YouTube channels… And also individual voices: authors, translators, critics, readers. Together, they form a community that exists in the rhythm of the transborder.
The soul of Belarusian literature has long lived in the quiet reading room of the Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library in London. This unique institution, founded in 1971, is the only one outside Belarus that specializes exclusively in Belarusian studies. Its collection was assembled under the stewardship of Father Alexander Nadson, a devoted promoter of Belarusian culture. Today, it holds over 30,000 volumes, including rare publications, manuscripts, and archives that tell the story of Belarusian history, literature, language, religion, folklore, music, and art—a whole universe of Belarusian thought.
The London Skaryna Library not only preserves the past but also works actively to promote it. In 2024, the library opened a new art museum for permanent and temporary exhibitions, and created a virtual museum dedicated to the history of the Belarusian Renaissance.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in New York, Belarusian émigrés also made a significant contribution to preserving and developing our literature. After World War II, a wide network of Belarusian organizations emerged in the USA, engaging in publishing activities, actively producing memoirs and works by émigré writers, and establishing the Belarusian Institute of Science and Art.
Today’s literary diaspora continues the traditions of their predecessors. In Nadson’s London, the publishing house Skaryna Press has recently begun its work, publishing books in Belarusian and English, including translations of classic and contemporary authors. And in New York, alongside the early émigré Krecheuski Foundation, a new wave of Belarusians has created yet another library, at the Cathedral of St. Cyril of Turaŭ, and an online bookstore. An e-shop has opened in the greater San Francisco area, and in the small town of Kensington, you can now hold and buy new Belarusian books.
Readers worldwide have plenty to explore—on our LitMap, around 50 online and offline bookstores are marked. And plenty to choose from—more than 30 publishers now offer their books to Belarusians abroad. Eight of them are registered in Warsaw. The others are scattered across Europe and America: continuing Skaryna’s cause in Bialystok, Kraków, Gdańsk, Vilnius, Prague, Berlin, Zurich, Stockholm, Linderöd, Toronto…
As dozens of new books are born, new libraries also appear within the Belarusian diaspora. One of them is at the Center of Belarusian Community and Culture in Vilnius. There, over 1,500 items are stored. The collection was built on parts of personal libraries donated by literary and cultural figures. Two years ago, based on a reader survey, the library received its name—Chytalnya (“The Reading Room”). Last year, thanks to contributions from Belarusians in Lithuania, its catalog became available on a new website.
Another interesting book project created by the émigré community is MnieNeZhalka (“I Don’t Mind”). Its idea is to organize free temporary exchanges of paper books via Telegram. The platform upholds principles of conscious consumption and an ecological approach to using resources.
Readers’ interests are satisfied both by works of Belarusian classics and contemporaries and by translations of the most notable foreign authors. For example, this is one of the trademarks of publishers like Janushevich, Logvinau, Slavyanka, Vilma…
On our LitMap, you can clearly see a trend toward specialization among publishers, which shows the wide spectrum of readers’ interests.
For example, the multiprofile Kamunikat.org emphasizes fiction and texts related to Belarusian culture; Pflyaumbaum represents women’s voices; Skaryna offers a queer collection and an anthology of Belarusian gay literature; SayBeat supports non-commercial experiments in authorial writing in the context of emigration; hochroth Minsk specializes exclusively in poetry; Grunwald Publishing produces Belarusian literature in English; Mianie Niama, conversely, publishes only Belarusians or those who write about Belarus; Lysy Cherap (“Bald Skull”) helps authors who step beyond the mainstream and have difficulties getting published…
Modern émigré publishers actively study their readers’ demands and engage them in bringing interesting books to life. For example, the community crowdfunding platform Knižny Magistrat (“The Book Magistrate”) aims for long-term development through collective funding of publishing projects. Participants make monthly contributions (from $10 to $100) to a common fund and then vote to decide exactly which projects the collected resources should support.
In the current situation, when a significant part of Belarusian literature is being created in emigration, many authors turn directly to printing services without intermediaries. This is a new form of independent publishing that combines features of samizdat, print-on-demand, and diasporic author-led editions. Such books are usually financed by the authors themselves, printed in small runs (10–100 copies), often without an ISBN. Their hallmark is an intelligent and often delicately emotional character, a strong connection to personal experience, emigration, memory, resistance, and cultural identity.
This phenomenon relies on the legislative openness of European countries, where publishing of this kind does not require a publisher’s license. This format reflects a contemporary stage of autonomous, non-institutional, often émigré book production that continues the traditions of Soviet samizdat but with a modern look, technologies, and geography. It is a new cultural niche where the word regains its freedom through print—without permission, but with responsibility.
The book Heading to Magadan by Ihar Alinevich. It is worth mentioning here the culturally revolutionary initiative of the anarchist movement—Anarchist Black Cross – Belarus. Essentially a self-publishing collective, it gives a voice to political prisoners, protest participants, philosophers, and activists. Among its most important publications are Heading to Magadan by Ihar Alinevich and Memory of the Defeated, about imprisonment and resistance in jails.
Our LitMap shows: Belarusian literature finds its way to readers in these new and challenging conditions, and the literary infrastructure successfully adapts and develops in the new reality. This is no longer a marginal phenomenon or a historical curiosity, but a living, active, many-voiced cultural space. It grows not from the top down, but from within—through initiatives, through the need to speak and be heard, through the desire to find like-minded people and simply fellow Belarusians.
For virtually every taste, there is a range of productions by audio publishers based in Bialystok, Warsaw, and Prague.
Serving as a navigator is the website of the Audiobooks.by project, which offers links to relevant platforms, including its own productions in audio format. One of the leaders in this area—the multiprofile platform Kamunikat.org—gives listeners free access to more than 500 hours of recorded works.
And audiobooks are in high demand. For example, the latest release from Knižny Voz—the audio version of Ears of Grain Beneath Your Sickle by Uladzimir Karatkevich—broke all possible listening records within the first weeks. Also very popular are works from the Giedroyc Prize shortlist available in the Audiotheque of PEN Belarus. Memoirs by notable figures who recorded their texts in the Radio Svaboda studio have also received many listens.
It’s not only books that are being heard—Belarusian podcasts about them fill the internet. There are so many offerings that a dedicated Belarus Podcast Hub has emerged. It provides numerous links to specialized projects and platforms such as Litradio, Bellit, Bellit over Beer, Around Literature, Where Books Come From, Superdudko, III Act…
They are produced by writers, literary scholars, librarians, readers… Among the latest additions to our LitMap are Literary Notes by Siarhei Dubavets. The project launched in April 2025 and is devoted to reflecting on Belarusian literature, its imagery, symbols, and cultural codes.
Today’s books without letters are not only heard—they are also visualized, for example, on YouTube channels.
The first in this area was the children’s channel Baybus. Among its main sections is Tales with Maliavanych. In August 2022, the channel was added to the international YouTube Kids app, which demonstrates its quality and compliance with children’s content standards.
Meanwhile, the series of short lectures Belarus as a Text, published on the YouTube channel of the online magazine Taŭbin, analyzes the key texts of Belarusian culture that shaped national identity. Topics include the Philomaths and Philarets, works by Francysk Bahushevich, Ihnat Abdziralovich, Janka Kupala, and the legacy of the Łuckievič brothers. Each lecture is accompanied by subtitles in Belarusian and English.
A 2025 newcomer recorded on our LitMap is the video project Smalenne Viepruka (“Scorching the Boar”). It covers little-known or silenced facts not taught in schools and not discussed by critics, deciphers authors’ meanings, and reopens our literature and its characters.
This is a tremendous endeavor, joined by foreign academic platforms: Nicolaus Copernicus and Maria Curie-Skłodowska Universities in Poland, Harvard and the University of Texas at San Antonio in the USA, Coventry University in England, Humboldt University in Germany…
Thus, speaking about contemporary Belarusian literature abroad is not about conserving tradition, but about expanding modernity.
Part 3: The portrait of a wanderer, or the person who does not give up
Every literature has a face. And when you look at contemporary Belarusian literature, it is a mosaic of hundreds of individuals. They not only write but also create spaces where books live: they are read, listened to, discussed, translated, nurture others, and become part of a new cultural landscape.
That is why our LitMap is also about concrete people: creators, enthusiasts, personalities.
Special mention deserves the tandem of Andrei Januszkiewicz and Nasta Karnatskaya. The publishing house Januszkiewicz in Minsk was known for its courage, quality, and commitment to Belarusian culture. In 2022, during the opening of the Minsk bookstore Knihaŭka, Andrei and Nasta were sentenced to administrative arrest. After their release, they opened Knihaŭka again, this time in Warsaw. They continue publishing contemporary Belarusian authors, translating world literature, organizing events and meetings. Nasta, by the way, is also the host of the podcast Bellit. This duo is an example of civic courage and devotion to the Belarusian book in the most difficult circumstances. Their project is not merely a publishing house—it is a model of cultural resistance where every book becomes an act of will.
Publishers, among other things, are also an excellent example of developing Belarusian business abroad. For instance, Ihar Logvinau started his work a quarter-century ago, but after losing his license, he resumed operations in Vilnius.
In Bialystok, local journalist and civic activist Yaraslau Ivaniuk has worked with even greater enthusiasm since the events of 2020. His Kamunikat.org now holds around 3,000 books in PDF, as well as audio plays and digitized versions of numerous independent media outlets. The platform provides free access to literature banned in Belarus and works about Belarus.
So today’s Belarusian literature is a continuation and development. People who have mobilized and are creating something new because they simply cannot do otherwise.
For example, the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich not only continues to work on new books but has also launched the publishing house Pflyaumbaum.
Dzmitry Strocaŭ at work on his books
Poet Dzmitry Strocaŭ organized the publishing house hochroth Minsk in Berlin. He produces books manually, in numbered copies. More than thirty poetry collections have already been released. This year, four of these books were simultaneously nominated for Belarus’s main poetry award—the Natalia Arsiennieva Prize. Mr. Strocaŭ was shortlisted for the International Publishers Association’s Prix Voltaire 2025 for freedom to publish.
Poet and educator Andrei Khadanovich runs his own YouTube channel, which has become a kind of traveling university of Belarusian literature—an important educational and cultural platform for the Belarusian diaspora, teachers, and students. Khadanovich transforms reading into thinking, into a bridge between times, texts, and people. Effectively banned by the Belarusian authorities, the channel remains an effective tool of enlightenment.
Playwright and co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, Mikalai Khalezin, not only oversees new stage projects around the world but also hosts a popular YouTube show.
In the United States, playwright and screenwriter Andrei Kureichyk, on his author YouTube channel Alternative Blogovision, often turns to Belarusian writing, analyzing its impact on shaping national identity and civic consciousness. The videos discuss works by both classic and contemporary authors.
Much is being done to popularize Belarusian culture abroad by writers such as Eva Vežnaviec, Yulia Tsimafejeva, Sasha Filipenka, Aliaksandr Charnukha, Siarhei Shupa…
Quite recently, the largest international book festival in Leipzig became a triumph for our literature: for his novel Dogs of Europe, Alhierd Bacharevič received the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, underscoring the significance of the Belarusian word in the international context. And Thomas Weiler was awarded the Leipzig Book Prize in the translation category for Feuerdörfer. Wehrmachtsverbrechen in Belarus – Zeitzeugen berichten—the translation of the landmark book by Ales Adamovich, Janka Bryl, and Uladzimir Kaliesnik.
A testament to the strengthening ties between our writers and their Western colleagues has been the publishing initiative 33 Books for Belarus, founded in Switzerland in 2023 by translator Iryna Herasіmovich, Slavicist Silvia Sasse, and writer Lukas Bärfuss. The project is carried out with the support of the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Zurich and the Goethe-Institut in Exile. Its goal is to help publish works that, under current conditions, cannot be printed in Belarus. The project brings together European publishers ready to assist with releasing Belarusian books, thereby contributing to the spread of our literature abroad.
In this complex process, not only prominent figures and renowned institutions are involved but also simply literature enthusiasts and readers.
For example, the independent London online bookstore and cultural space Notre Locus was founded in 2022 by two enthusiasts—Ulada and Karina.
Or the projects of the two Katsiarynas. The first, even before 2020, founded a book club in Minsk, and after emigration began the blog Knižnyja Razmovy (“Book Conversations”), which today has more than 2,500 subscribers. Her namesake has over a thousand Instagram followers, analyzes and compares works, and helps readers choose books. About herself, she writes: “An (un)serious amateur of Belarusian lit, named my cat Hervasiy.”
Aliaksandra Huszcza launched the Zhyveteka initiative in Warsaw to collect and distribute Belarusian books and board games at a Polish library. The aim is to promote the native language and culture among Belarusians in Poland and to make literature more accessible. Aliaksandra collects books (especially children’s books) and plans to find resources to buy up stock from shops that are now closing in Belarus—at least one copy of each. Another idea is to raise funds among caring Belarusians to reprint works by executed writers.
Former political prisoner Dzmitry Furmanau, together with his wife Volha, created a Belarusian space in Vilnius specializing in selling souvenirs and items with national symbols, as well as books in the native language.
And there are dozens more examples like these.
LitMap 2025 is a community of creative, devoted, and resilient people who, regardless of geography and life’s challenges, continue to serve literature, giving “books from the shelf” a real cultural presence.
Anton Roksha