Reading is a good way to keep yourself and your mental health during the war. And reading Ukrainian literature is one of the methods of resistance. In this way, we get to know ourselves, our history and culture better. Rereading familiar works during military events will allow you to look at the situation differently.
We bring to your attention the TOP 10 books by Ukrainian authors that are worth reading during the war:
Vasyl Barka – “The Yellow Prince”
This is the first major prose work dedicated to the terrible famine of 1932-1933. A national tragedy, the genocide of the Ukrainian people committed by the Bolshevik government. Barka created a symbolic image of the Yellow Prince, a demon who brings only death and destruction.
Anthology of essays “Martial State”
Fresh modern literature, about the events of recent years in Ukraine. Ukrainian writers have written 50 different stories since the beginning of the full-scale war. The foreword to the book was written by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi.
Serhii Zhadan “Boarding”
Living classic Serhiy Zhadan created a novel about the life of a teacher during the war in Donbas. Ukrainian language teacher Pasha goes to the city, the prototype of which is Debaltseve, to pick up his nephew from boarding school. But the Ukrainian army is leaving the town surrounded by the Russians.
Volodymyr Stanchyshyn “Emotional Swing of War”
Reflections of a psychotherapist on war, he claims that any emotional reaction to events is normal. The circumstances in which all Ukrainians found themselves are not normal. We have the right to rage, cry, suffer, hate.
Katya Petrovska “Probably Esther”
The German author of Ukrainian origin raises the topic of the Holocaust, which was committed by German Nazism on Ukrainian territory, in particular in one of the tracts of Kyiv, infamously known as Babyn Yar. Not only the Jews of Kyiv and its neighboring territories were shot there, but also many Ukrainian patriots, among them the famous poet Olena Teliga.
Artem Cheh “District “D”
A collection of stories, stories of different people who lived in Cherkasy in one house in the “D” district. This is a group portrait of several dozen more or less registered residents of the mentioned Cherkasy district with their more or less successful attempts to survive the unexpected transition from late Soviet to early independent Ukraine.
Yevhen Polozhiy “Mary and her airport”
An exciting, sometimes funny, sometimes sad book, in which, as in life, there must be happiness – because it cannot be without it. This is a story about Mary and Herman, about how quickly love can be executed and how difficult it is to get rid of it.
Andrii Kokotyukha “Mistress from Rynok Square”
This is a historical detective story about the occupation times of our beautiful Lviv. Klym Koshovy is subjected to mass arrests, but everything suddenly changes after the death of Bozhena Mykulska, the mistress of an influential Russian officer. And not only him.
Kateryna Babkina “My grandfather danced better than anyone else”
A series of stories that make up one story of five different families. The children of these families meet on the first of September at school, in the first year of Ukraine’s independence. They become friends for life. From the twenties in Kharkiv and the destruction of the Les Kurbas theater due to the Holodomor, the Second World War, the nineties and several waves of emigration to the war in Donbas.
Lina Kostenko “Three hundred poems”
A collection of poems by a legendary woman, Ukrainian, Kyivan, poetess. Lina Kostenko survived the Second World War and survives the war today. During her life, she saw the bombing of her native Kyiv twice. The collection includes the most famous poems of different years of the local woman’s work.
