His career in literature began in the mid-1950s at the literary association of his medical school. His first stories were published in the magazine "
Yunost" and illustrated by his own illustrations. The first story "Like at the war" (1966) tells of doctor's everyday life. He has been a Member of the
Writer's Union of Ukraine since 1966 (Secretary of the Board in 1987–1991), and a Member of the Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine since 1971. His debut as a playwright was with the play "Discovery" at the Kharkiv Pushkin Academic Theatre in 1975. He has an excellent command of
Polish, and translated Polish poetry and writers, often lecturing to students at
Warsaw University. In the novel "The Chronicle of Yaropol Town" (1968) he described the grotesque, fantastic story of the small town of Yaropol, chronicling and describing all manner of real and incredible events which happened there over several centuries. The story combines elements of science fiction,
legends and
fairy tales. He has also written several fantastic stories: "Interrogation", "Synthesis", "Odyssey −2482" and many others. Most of his works can be attributed to the conventional genre of "urban prose". He is the author of the novel "The Barrier of Incompatibility" which concerns the moral problems of
heart transplantation, the documentary novel "The Causes and Consequences" regarding the struggle against
rabies, novels, digests of
short stories, poems and plays,
screenplays and a number of artistic, scientific and documentary movies. He was awarded the Y. Yanovsky literary prize (1984) for a collection of short stories "The Bright Dances of the Past", and the O. Dovzhenko state prize for the screenplay of the film "Public Attitudes". Soviet period books were published in Germany,
Poland,
Hungary,
Czechoslovakia,
Romania and other countries. As a publicist Yuriy Shcherbak became known with documentary novel about the
Chernobyl tragedy. "Chornobyl" (1987–1991) was published in the US, Canada, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Japan and other countries. In the dystopian thriller *Dead Memory: Voices and Screams*, published in 2021, he painted a grim picture of the occupation of Ukraine, in which the enemy has achieved its goal: the destruction of national memory. Under the guise of the main anti-hero, the Jewish ruler of Ukraine, Borys Barkas—who dreams of creating a transnational human being of the future, hates nationalists for the Holocaust and Jewish pogroms, uses cocaine and dreams of selling Ukraine to Russia—Shcherbak created a caricature of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The author also subjected digitalisation and gender equality to harsh criticism.. This novel was awarded the
Shevchenko National Prize.. == Career in independent Ukraine ==