Natalka Vorozhbyt

Natalka Vorozhbyt (aka Natal'ya Vorozhbit / Natal'ia Vorozhbyt) is a Ukrainian playwright and a leader in the resurgence of Ukrainian national drama in the 21st century. She writes in both Ukrainian and Russian.

Her first major play, Glka Motalko, had success shortly after she graduated from the Gorky Literature Institute (Moscow) in 2000. The Grain Store, a historical work about the Holodomor, the state-induced famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London in 2009.

Vorozhbyt took part in the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2013 and 2014, and the theme of the ensuing war with Russia has coloured her work since. In 2015 she co-founded the Theater of Displaced People with Georg Genoux, offering an opportunity for refugees from the Donbass region to tell their stories in a formal, theatrical context.

Her other plays include Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha, which received its UK premiere as part of A Play, A Pie and A Pint: International Plays from Ukraine and Russia at Òran Mór, Glasgow, and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2015; and Bad Roads (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2017).

Bad Roads was made into a film directed by the author, which was Ukraine's official Oscar selection in 2022. Vorozhbyt also wrote the screenplay for Cyborgs (2017), a film about the defence of an airport in Donetsk where Ukrainian soldiers fought separatists for 242 days.