Recommendations from our site
“It’s a viscerally compelling novel about civilians caught up in the early days of the war in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, that began in 2014, years before the full-scale Russian invasion of the country in 2022. The author grew up in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, so it’s drawn from deeply personal experience. But like Bellová, he never names the places he writes about—or identifies the soldiers—reflecting the real chaos of war, and creating a sense that such conflagrations could potentially happen anywhere and take anyone by surprise.” Read more...
The Best Central and East European Novels
Maya Jaggi, Journalist
“The Orphanage is an extremely interesting book. Serhiy Zhadan comes from Eastern Ukraine and during Maidan was taking part in the clashes in the second-largest Ukrainian city, Kharkiv, which is now under the threat of possible attack.” Read more...
The best books on Ukraine and Russia
Serhii Plokhy, Historian
