Anastasiia Levkova’s ‘There Is Land Beyond Perekop’ to be released in English

The novel “There Is Land Beyond Perekop” by Ukrainian writer and editor Anastasiia Levkova will be published in English.

“Many readers, including people I do not know, asked me when the English translation of ‘There Is Land Beyond Perekop’ would be available. Some of them offered to translate it themselves as ‘volunteer translators’ (and I quote), to use AI or something else so that the book could finally reach English-speaking audiences. However, I have just received a message from the publisher that lengthy negotiations with an American publisher have been completed,” Levkova wrote.

The rights to translate the book were acquired by Columbia University Press, and the book is expected to hit the American market within the next two years. The translation of the novel will be funded by a grant from the Razom for Ukraine foundation.

The Ukrainian edition was published by Laboratoria Publishing House in 2023. Iva Kucherenko worked on the cover for the publication.

According to the publisher, work on the book started in 2012, but the concept changed after Russia occupied Crimea in 2014. During this period, the author conducted around 200 interviews with over 50 Crimeans, and their stories were incorporated into the novel.

“Crimea. This is where the main character of the novel spent her childhood, youth, and experienced first love. This is where she realized she was Ukrainian. Neither her grandfather, a KGB lieutenant colonel, nor the Russian blood in her veins could prevent this. Crimean Tatar culture and Ukrainian history are intertwined in the novel like an ornament. On the pages of the book, the reader will meet Crimean Tatars, Karaites, Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, Jewish, Greeks, and Armenians of Crimea, and will gradually uncover family secrets. Together with the main character and her friend Aliye, they will travel from their childhood in the 1990s to the Russian occupation of the peninsula in 2014, with excursions into the ancient history of Crimea,” the annotation to the Ukrainian publication reads.

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Copy editing: Joy Tataryn