In The Chronicles of the Lost Soul, Anna Halas stages the psychological fracture of a woman living through the war in Ukraine by splitting her protagonist into two figures: the Body and the Soul. As the Body continues functioning – caring for children, working, and moving through daily life, the Soul wanders elsewhere, overwhelmed by grief, fear, and memories of destruction across the country. Through this poetic dialogue between numb survival and emotional devastation, the play captures the dissociation experienced by civilians in wartime. As refugees pass through the family’s temporary shelter and air raid sirens punctuate daily life, the Soul struggles to reunite with the Body and rediscover a sense of humanity. The play becomes a haunting meditation on trauma, resilience, and the fragile process of remaining human during catastrophe.
Anna Halas was born in Lviv, Ukraine and graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, specializing in translation. She furthered her education at the University of Oxford in England, focusing on contemporary British drama. Upon returning to Lviv, Anna Halas began teaching and conducting research at Ivan Franko National University, where she presented her PhD thesis on theatre translation, with a particular emphasis on contemporary Irish drama, including the works of Martin McDonagh.
Halas attended many prestigious schools of literary and theatre translation, including the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), the University of East Anglia, (England) and the University of Bristol (England). Additionally, she has delivered guest lectures on drama and translation at institutions such as the Ukrainian Catholic University (Ukraine), the University of Birmingham (UK), Princeton University (USA), the University of Notre Dame (USA), Leipzig University (Germany) etc.
Over her career, Halas partnered with numerous theatres throughout Ukraine, working with texts by playwrights like Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Eugene O’Neill, William Gibson, and more. A significant highlight came in 2020 when her translation of Christopher Hampton's Dangerous Liaisons was recognized by "Eurodram," a prestigious European network devoted to translated drama.
