The collection «Islands of Memory» in Ukrainian, English, and Hebrew: how Buchach unites Ukraine, Israel, and Agnon’s literature

On the western map of Ukraine, there is a city whose name has become a symbol of cultural memory — Buchach. It was here that the future Nobel laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon was born, a writer who combined Jewish spirituality and European philosophy. A century later, this city resonates again — now as the site of a literary residency and the book “Islands of Memory”, where Ukrainian authors reflect on time, identity, and Agnon's legacy. The publication has become a cultural bridge between Ukraine, Israel, and the diaspora, uniting texts in three languages — Ukrainian, English, and Hebrew.

Return to the origins: the city where it all began

Buchach is a small town in the Ternopil region, once the center of Galicia, where Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish traditions intertwined. It was here in 1888 that Shmuel Yosef Agnon was born — a future classic who became one of the creators of modern Israeli literature.
His childhood was spent among ancient synagogues, baroque churches, and river slopes, where every place held traces of prayers and songs in Hebrew and Yiddish. Later, these motifs came to life in his books, and Buchach itself became a kind of archetype — a city of memory where the…

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