Olena Stiazhkina’s book “Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary” will be published in USA

Olena Stiazhkina’s book “Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary” will be published in the United States in winter as reported by Oleh Kotsiuba, head of the publishing house of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, on the social network X.

“This is a brilliant, ironic and intense portrait of Olena’s home town and its inhabitants during Russia’s occupation,” he wrote.

The book was translated by Ann O. Fisher, and will be published by the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI). 

HURI provides this summary of the book on its page:

“Stiazhkina’s diary opens on March 2, 2014, as the first wave of pro-Russian protest washes over eastern Ukraine in the wake of Euromaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, and closes on August 18, 2014, the day a convoy of civilian Ukrainian refugees is deliberately slaughtered by Russian forces. Vignettes from her personal life intermingle with current events as Stiazhkina examines ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. She is captured early on by pro-Russian forces while browsing for books, but freed when one of her captors turns out to be a former student,” is said in the description of the book on the Harvard University website.

Read more about Ukrainian books translated into English: Big politics, love and self-discovery in the novel “Ivan and Phoebe” by Oksana Lutsyshyna

“We walk with local dogs and their owners; we meet a formidable apartment building manager who shames occupiers into letting her dismantle and remove their artillery from the roof of her building; we follow a family evacuated to Kyiv whose young son builds checkpoints out of Legos. Stiazhkina documents it all, guiding us with sly humor, dry wit, and dripping sarcasm as we descend with her into grim war. Olena Stiazhkina’s Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary is a fierce love letter to her country, her city, and her people,” is written in the annotation to the book.

Olena Stiazhkina is a Ukrainian writer, essayist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of History, member of PEN Ukraine. Founder of a civil movement “Deoccupation. Return. Education.” She is also the author of more than ninety scientific publications issued both in Ukraine and abroad.

Photo: bookforum.ua