Bio
IRENE ZABYTKO is a fiction writer whose first book, THE SKY UNWASHED (Algonquin Books, 2,000), is a novel about Chornobyl (Ukrainian transliteration) and the evacuees who returned to their irradiated villages. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Book, A Book Sense '76 Pick Selection, and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery title. The e-book version was rated Number One on Amazon.com and appeared on “The New York Times Bestseller E-Books List.”
She is currently producing, writing and co-directing a documentary about the real life Chornobyl survivors called LIFE IN THE DEAD ZONE (www.lifeinthedeadzone.com), and has completed a related award winning film short, EPIPHANY AT CHORNOBYL and awarded an IREX Short Term Travel Grant and a Fulbright Scholar’s Award to Ukraine. She has studied filmmaking with filmmakers Dov S.S. Siemans, Keith Partridge and Michael Brown at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and with the B.B.C. in London. Currently, she is in Ukraine as a Fulbright Scholar.