Marko Robert Stekh. The Voice

Marko Robert Stekh

Work proposed for translation:

The Voice
A novel (2005)
Length: 576 pp.
Copyright: Author: m.stech@utoronto.ca

Marko Robert Steckh (born 1961) is a Ukrainian writer, literary critic, and cultural theorist. He was born in Poland, but emigrated to Canada in 1982. He received his doctorate in Slavic studies from the University of Toronto, defending his thesis on the dramaturgy of Mykola Kulish. In the 1980s, Stech founded and headed the Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theatre (AUT) in Toronto. He was a producer of the film Oxygen Hunger (directed by Andrii Donchyk) and an assistant producer of the film Swan Lake. The Zone (directed by Yurii Illienko). In 2011, he created the author’s TV show Through the Eyes of Culture, in which he talks about the famous and little-known pages of Ukrainian culture. As an author, Stekh is known primarily for his novel The Voice, which was awarded the Mykola Hohol International Literary Prize in 2009. His experimental prose work The Immortals and a collection of literary essays and interviews Essayism in Search of Sources (2016) have also gained wide recognition. Among Mark Robert Stekh’s awards are the Ivan Koshelivets International Literary Prize (2008), the Hlodoskyi Skarb Art Prize (2014), and the Panteleimon Kulish International Literary and Art Prize (2017). Today Stekh holds the position of Director of the Publishing House of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

The novel The Voice is a philosophical, meditative prose full of archetypes; it is also called an “alchemical novel”. The main character, Oleh, suddenly finds himself in a nameless space, devoid of familiar coordinates. There is only the omnipresent Voice — a symbol of the truth of being, objective and common to all. This voice forms the backbone of the narrative. Oleh is faced with the task of finding a man who suddenly disappeared under strange circumstances, leaving behind fragments of an unfinished novel. Looking for traces in these incomprehensible notes, Oleh is shocked to realize: this ephemeral text of a stranger metaphorically describes his own life. In the process of searching for a way out, the hero encounters figures that can be both real and a product of his consciousness. Stekh masterfully constructs a space where the boundary between the external and the internal, life and death, reality and hallucination is blurred. The Voice resonates with the traditions of Kafka, Beckett, and Sartre, offering intellectual prose about the limits of the human psyche and existential experience.