4.0
The Ukraine
ByPublisher Description
A stunning debut collection of fiction and creative nonfiction— irreverent and unglorified; loving and tender; uncomfortable and inconvenient—by a Ukrainian writer currently fighting for his country in Kyiv.
Includes the celebrated title story "The Ukraine," which was published in the New Yorker in 2022.
The Ukraine is a collection of 26 pieces that deliberately blur the line between nonfiction and fiction, conjuring the essence of a beloved country through its tastes, smells, and sounds, its small towns and big cities, its people and their compassion and indifference, simplicities and complications.
The Ukraine conveys to readers a place that Chapeye and his countrymen are currently fighting for with their lives. The book features a preface by the author, which he composed on his phone from the front lines.
Includes the celebrated title story "The Ukraine," which was published in the New Yorker in 2022.
The Ukraine is a collection of 26 pieces that deliberately blur the line between nonfiction and fiction, conjuring the essence of a beloved country through its tastes, smells, and sounds, its small towns and big cities, its people and their compassion and indifference, simplicities and complications.
- In the title story, Chapeye facetiously plays with the English misuse of the article “the” in reference to Ukraine, capturing a country as perceived from the outside, by foreigners. That pseudo-kitsch, often historically shallow, and not-quite-real Ukraine resonates because of its highly engaging and brutally candid snapshots of ordinary lives and typical places.
- In “One Soul per Home” an elderly woman laments that the men are dying and the young are leaving for the cities, changing the face of her small town;
- In “The Unscrupulous Spirit of the Provinces,” a couple of unspecified gender get stoned and go to church; and in “False Premises,” a man romanticizes his younger years working for a Soviet fishing fleet only to reconstruct his nostalgia in the face of Putin’s Russia.
The Ukraine conveys to readers a place that Chapeye and his countrymen are currently fighting for with their lives. The book features a preface by the author, which he composed on his phone from the front lines.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities9 Reviews
4.0
sasha ❦ hazy chapters
Created 26 days agoShare
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“✩ 4,5 stars
❝ “Maybe love is more acute when it’s mixed with the feeling of inevitable loss,” she surmised. I think I finally understand what she meant. ❞
Did I cry? No, but only because I was in the metro, and as a proud Parisian girl with Ukrainian roots, I have a poker face to keep and an ego to fulfill.
More seriously, this collection was so beautiful. It was raw, unglorified, simple. I’ve learned so much about Ukrainian people and life in Ukraine, especially in the 1990 right after the fall of the Soviet Union; and in 2014-2015. As stated in the book description, this collection is balanced between fiction and creative nonfiction. Nevertheless, as we are told in a few stories the narrator is from Ivano-Frankivsk, I couldn’t ignore the closeness I had with him. Having a family supposedly coming from the area, it was like touring Ukraine for the first time with a distant relative.
I think my favourite stories were “Rehabilitation”, “Take Care of Yourself, Bratishka”, “An Average Schmuck”, “Marmalade”, and “The Ukraine”.
The title of this last one gets me teary each time. The meaning woven into the words is very different to the current meaning it holds now. I can’t ignore the fact many people refer to Ukraine as "The Ukraine” to promote the idea of a mere region, and not an independent country. This collection will count you another story, but it will also show you all the complexity of Ukrainian people.
I loved reading about all these nuances. We are told many things by media, and sometimes forgot the best way to understand a country and its essence, is to actually ask its citizens. More I discover about Ukraine, the more I’m amazed. Ukraine is one of the oldest European countries, and Europe global history revolves in majority around Kyiv and Ukrainian people. This collection was a beautiful surprise and I can’t wait to read more about this beautiful country. And I’m looking forward to peace and safety for all Ukrainian people 🌻”Kelsey
Created 5 months agoShare
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lidenbrokk
Created 6 months agoShare
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Justyna Wilkinson
Created 11 months agoShare
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“An amazing collection of stories!! Слава Україна! Слава героям!”
About Artem Chapeye
An author of both creative nonfiction and popular fiction, ARTEM CHAPEYE was born and raised in the small Western Ukrainian city of Kolomyia and has spent much of the last twenty years living in Kyiv. He is the author of two novels and four books of creative nonfiction, and is a co-author of a book of war reportage. A four-time finalist of the BBC Book of the Year Award, his recent collection The Ukraine was one of three finalists in the award’s new nonfiction category in 2018. Artem is an avid traveler who spent close to two years living, working, and traveling in the U.S. and Central America—an experience that has greatly informed his writing. His work has been translated into seven languages, and has appeared in English in the Best European Fiction anthology and in publications such as Refugees Worldwide, translated by Marian Schwartz. Artem is a past recipient of the Central European Initiative Fellowship for Writers in Residence (Slovenia) and the Paul Celan Fellowship for Translators (Austria), as well as a finalist of the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism. He serves on the board of PEN Ukraine.
ZENIA TOMPKINS is an American literary translator and founder of The Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation (TAULT, tault.org). Her published books include adult fiction, adult nonfiction,and children’s. Zenia’s work as a translator and promoter of Ukrainian literature has been featured by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Poets & Writers, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, and Public Radio International. She is devoting 2023 and 2024 to working exclusively with Ukrainian authors who have enlisted in Ukraine’s armed forces since the Russian invasion. Since its inception in 2019, TAULT has worked with over one hundred of Ukraine’s top and emerging authors.
ZENIA TOMPKINS is an American literary translator and founder of The Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation (TAULT, tault.org). Her published books include adult fiction, adult nonfiction,and children’s. Zenia’s work as a translator and promoter of Ukrainian literature has been featured by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Poets & Writers, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, and Public Radio International. She is devoting 2023 and 2024 to working exclusively with Ukrainian authors who have enlisted in Ukraine’s armed forces since the Russian invasion. Since its inception in 2019, TAULT has worked with over one hundred of Ukraine’s top and emerging authors.
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