Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina, who was seriously wounded in a Russian missile attack in the center of Kramatorsk on June 27, has died in Dnipro hospital, the Ukrainian PEN Center reported.

The death toll from the attack rose to 13.

Aftermath of the missile attack on Kramatorsk / Photo: Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of Donetsk RMA

“It is with great pain that we inform you that on July 1, the heart of writer Victoria Amelina stopped beating at Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro,” the organization said in a statement.

The doctors “did everything possible to save her life, but unfortunately, the injury proved fatal.”

The PEN Center also clarified that they disseminated this sad news when all of Victoria’s family members learned about it and with their consent. She leaves behind a 10-year-old son.

On June 27, Victoria Amelina was at the Ria Lounge pizza bar with a Colombian delegation.

She was transported from Kramatorsk to Dnipro, where doctors fought for her life for several days.

The personality of Victoria Amelina

Victoria Amelina has become more than just a writer because of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. She joined the human rights organization Truth Hounds in summer 2022. Together with the team, she worked as a documenter of war crimes in the de-occupied territories in Eastern, Southern, and Northern Ukraine, including Kapitolivka in Izyum district of Kharkiv Oblast, where she found the diary of the writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who the Russians killed.

At the same time, Victoria began work on her first nonfiction book in English, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, which will soon be published abroad. In this book, Victoria tells the story of Ukrainian women who document war crimes and their lives during the war. The writer also engaged in active advocacy work: she appealed to other governments to provide weapons to Ukraine, demanded justice and the creation of a special international tribunal for all perpetrators of Russian war crimes against Ukraine, and spoke about the joint anti-colonial struggle of Ukrainians and other peoples of the world.

Victoria Amelina was born on January 1, 1986 in Lviv. During her school years, she moved to Canada with her father, but soon decided to return to Ukraine.

Victoria published her debut novel, The November Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens in 2014. The book was included in the top ten best prose publications according to the LitAccent of the Year 2014 award. The following year, the novel was republished and shortlisted for the Valeriy Shevchuk Prize.

IVictoria Amelina suspended her career in information technology to devote herself to writing in 2015. She published her first children’s book, Someone or the Water Heart in 2016. Her next book for children, The Eeeeeeeeevil Eka’s Excavator Stories, was published in 2021. Staryi Lev Publishing House published Victoria’s second novel, Home for Home in 2017. The book was shortlisted for national and international awards: “LitAccent of the Year – 2017”, the UNESCO City of Literature Prize, and the European Prize for Literature. The Zaporizhzhia Book Fair named Home for Home the best prose book of the year.

Victoria Amelina’s texts have been translated into Polish, Czech, German, Dutch, and English. Recently, her novel Home for Home was translated into Spanish.

In 2021, Victoria became a laureate of the Joseph Conrad-Kozięowski Literary Prize. In the same year, she founded the New York Literary Festival, which took place in the village of New York in the Bakhmut district of Donetsk region.

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