On March 18, the publishing house Hrani-T presented two books printed in Braille: Lesia Voronina’s The Stranger from the Niamlykland (part of the “Contemporary Children’s Fiction” series) and Iren Rozdobudko on Blaise Pascal, Wolfie Mozart, Katrusia Bilokur [about the famous Ukrainian folk painter Kateryna Bilokur’s childhood – Ed.], Hans Andersen and Charlie Chaplin (in the “Lives of Outstanding Children” series).
Thus, for the first time in 20 years, blind children will be able to read books by contemporary Ukrainian writers, says the publisher. Each book will be printed in 200 copies. As part of the social project Touch the Word, the books were sent free of charge to over 80 institutions for blind children: schools (including boarding schools), libraries as well as training and production associations.
“To print a book in Braille in Ukraine is quite difficult nowadays, because there is no full-fledged printing base and special paper for printing in Braille,” explains Liudmyla Starodub, deputy director of the publishing house Hrani-T and the project coordinator for Touch the Word. “Such paper is neither produced in Ukraine nor imported from other countries, while the only company still able to print in Braille is the UTOS [Ukrainian Association of Blind People] Republican Recording and Printing House. Every copy is assembled manually, and large-format pages with relief-point text are bound together. A book in braille is different from a ‘flat’ book because of its format and much larger number of pages. Speaking of the time needed to translate text into Braille, proofread it, print a book, and bind it — it takes about a month.”
Publishing in Braille is as much a sign of a civilized country where the phrase “human rights” is not just an empty sound, as providing basic amenities and conditions for disabled people is. Unfortunately, in Ukraine blind schoolchildren still have to learn using Soviet textbooks.
“The government does not fund the publishing of children’s fiction books in Braille, and moreover, it is not providing blind children with textbooks,” notes Starodub. “Meanwhile, blind children, like all other children, go to school and receive certificates. But now they have to learn using textbooks that had been published back in soviet times. The textbooks have not been revised, and the information these children receive and are shaped by has not been updated, as a result. Naturally, there are no new fiction books either. Another problem is that books in Braille quickly wear out, because ‘letters,’ that is, raised dots, become far less tangible after even a brief use of these books.” Hrani-T plans to continue publishing books for the blind. Around a dozen more books will be published this year. The first of them will be Oles Ilchenko’s Secrets of the Old Observatory.
