For some, Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts evoke images of coal mines, industrial sprawl, and Russian-speaking culture oriented toward Moscow. Yet to accept this as the regions’ defining reality is to ignore a deeper truth: a Ukrainian heritage that Russia has spent centuries attempting to erase. In the wake
The year 2024 proved to be another landmark for books about Ukraine and Ukrainian literature in translation, with a continued trend in publishing in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Unsurprisingly, Russia’s ongoing full-scale war against Ukraine was the most common topic among these works. Whether through incisive on-the-ground reportage that
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series of profiles highlighting successful Ukrainian startups and businesses. The series is funded by the regional investment fund Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund (UMAEF) and created in partnership with Spend With Ukraine, a non-profit organization that launched a platform to showcase businesses
Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions. The accounts of elderly Ukrainian civilians who survived the hardships of World War II in their youth, only to face the brutality of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, underscore the cyclical nature of history’s relentless and unforgiving course. It’s
In downtown Kyiv, trendy bookstore cafes are bustling with people enjoying coffee, reading, working on laptops, or socializing. Remarkably, many of these establishments, such as the 1,500-square-meter Sens bookstore on Kyiv's main street, Khreshchatyk, have emerged only recently – despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Oleksii Erinchak, the owner
The propaganda surrounding Russia’s 2014 invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts has been so pervasive that, even a decade later, people continue to parrot lines about the need to "protect the Donbas people from the Kyiv regime." It’s time for the voices of people from both regions to
“Everything in Ukraine is about pain, tears, serfdom, and wars. Of course, children don’t want to read such literature.” I still remember this conversation from back in school when the math teacher was trying to explain to the literature teacher why her class wasn’t preparing for their lessons.
“How should I manage this anger? Or should I?” Ukrainian author Oleksandr Mykhed asks himself following the start of Russia’s all-out war. In his book “The Language of War,” the first major Ukrainian prose work published by a Penguin imprint, Mykhed recounts how the lives of Ukrainians were upended
Under favorable conditions, the printing house is expected to be restored in four or five months, said Serhii Polituchyi, the Faktor Druk printing plant owner.
Editor's note: This article features graphic photos. Russian forces destroyed one of Ukraine's largest printing presses amid a mass missile attack on the city of Kharkiv on the morning of May 23. According to regional authorities, Russia used S-300 missiles, fired from inside Russian territory, to strike the factory belonging
Like any true detective novel, Andrey Kurkov’s “The Silver Bone” starts off with a brutal murder and endeavors to maintain high stakes until its final pages. The novel, now available to English-language readers in translation by Boris Dralyuk, was recently longlisted for the International Booker Prize, one of the
Ukrainian author Artem Chapeye has lived many lives: journalist, activist, translator, and since the spring of 2022, a soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Being a writer helps him to “endure everyday army life,” he said in an interview in June 2023, but “until everything is finished, it is very
In the midst of a full-blown agoraphobic episode, the unnamed narrator of Tanja Maljartschuk’s novel “Forgottenness,” becomes engrossed in reading old newspapers. Asked by her increasingly concerned partner what she’s looking for, she simply tells him: “I want to understand what time is.” “Time consumes everything living by
Warning: This book review contains graphic descriptions. While embedded with Ukrainian forces entering Bakhmut in December 2022, the bloodiest battle to date in the Russo-Ukrainian war, journalist Yaroslav Trofimov encountered anti-Kadyrov Chechen fighters fighting on the side of Ukraine. “It’s like Mariupol all over again,” one of the men
Ukraine’s authors should have been able to dedicate their lives to honing their craft. Instead, many of them have stepped up to contribute to the war effort and fight back against Russian aggression. Like any other member of society, Ukrainian authors have lost loved ones and colleagues to Russia’
A historian by profession who has studied war for over a decade, Olesya Khromeychuk found her research spilling over into real life when her older brother Volodymyr was killed in 2017 near Popasna in Luhansk Oblast, nearly two years into his military service. The Russian invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas
At a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, amidst the joyous remarks of the other presenters on the unification of the European continent, Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych conveyed his skepticism about the success of the “New Europe.” For Andrukhoych, 2009 was marked by the
Less than a month into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian shelling destroyed a popular bookstore on Kharkiv’s main street. Ukrainian writer and Kharkiv local Serhiy Zhadan uploaded a photo of the bookstore’s ruins onto social media on March 15 and asked, “Does anyone still want to talk
The 90s is an overlooked period in contemporary Ukrainian literature – unlike Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine – and the setting alone makes Oksana Lutsyshyna’s award-winning novel “Ivan and Phoebe” an achievement. Now available in Nina Murray's English translation from the U.S. publisher Deep Vellum, Lutsyshyna’s novel is
Kyiv's famous Petrivka book market will be torn down and replaced by another shopping mall, according to documents available on the urban planning department website of the Kyiv City State Administration. The open air book market has attained legendary status among residents of the capital. It is the largest place
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