Vira Vovk

Vira Ostapivna Selianska (Ukrainian: Ві́ра Оста́півна Селя́нська), pen name Vira Vovk (Ukrainian: Ві́ра Вовк), (born 1926, Boryslav) — Ukrainian writer, critic and translator living in Brazil. She writes in Ukrainian, German and Portuguese.

Born in Boryslav in 1926, she grew up in the Hutsul region in the town of Kuty (at that time on the Polish-Romanian border). Vira Vovk's secondary education was completed in Lviv and Dresden. She studied Germanics, music history and comparative literature at the University of Tübingen. In 1945 she emigrated with her mother to Portugal and in 1949 further to Brazil. She went to Rio de Janeiro where she completed her University studies. Post graduate studies were completed at Columbia University (New York) and Munich University. Vira Vovk received a PhD. Professor of German literature at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

She received the Ivan Franko Literary award in 1957, 1979, 1982 and 1990, the Blahovist award 2000. She actively propagates Ukrainian culture and language. In 2008, Vira Vovk received Ukrainian state award named after Taras Shevchenko.

Vira Vovk has created 10 collections of poetry, 10 novels, and 11 plays and has made numerous translations of Western writers into Ukrainian and Ukrainian writers into Portuguese.