Helena Kernan

Helena Kernan is a literary translator of Ukrainian and holds master’s degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley. Originally from the UK, she has lived in several European cities, including Kyiv, where she worked with the Theatre of Displaced People and Centre for Civil Liberties, and is now based in Berlin. She works with a wide variety of texts, from contemporary Ukrainian drama to poetry, documentary films, witness testimony, and editorial pieces. In 2024 she was chosen as a participant in the inaugural Translating Ukraine Summer Institute held in Wrocław, Poland.

Translations in London Ukrainian Review:

Maksym Kryvtsov,  ‘Amid voicing’
Maksym Kryvtsov, ‘My head rolls from tree to tree’
Maksym Kryvtsov, Nikita, read this prayer at least once per day, carry it with you in your pocket.’
Olha Matsiupa, A Topography of the Body

Contact: helena.r.k@hotmail.co.uk


Cover Image for Legacies of Chornobyl

Legacies of Chornobyl

Issue 6 (March 2026)

The explosion that destroyed the Chornobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 also reshaped political, ecological, and cultural landscapes around the world. This issue of the London Ukrainian Review marks the fortieth anniversary of the disaster and examines its evolving global impacts.

Sasha Dovzhyk
Cover Image for Nuclear Roulette: Serhii Plokhy in Conversation

Nuclear Roulette: Serhii Plokhy in Conversation

Issue 6 (March 2026)

Author of The Nuclear Age, historian Serhii Plokhy, discusses how Chornobyl catalysed Ukrainian independence and reveals the nuclear industry’s structural vulnerabilities. The conversation explores how nuclear disasters transform politics across decades and geographies with a focus on the weaponisation of civilian nuclear infrastructure during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Sasha Dovzhyk
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