Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

2016

Night swimming in August

by Serhiy Osoka

Serhiy Osoka’s first prose collection is about real-life stories and images of those who survived a hunger strike in their childhood or youth and experience other misfortunes in old age: illnesses, impotence, obduracy, hopelessness, misunderstanding, alienation. The author masterfully puts them in relationships with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren - still inexperienced and sometimes arrogant. These connections sealed by invisible, inconspicuous love deeply touch the reader, returning him to his own experience. Graphic realism and a thin line of mysticism, the unconscious desire for love and the awareness of love temptations transience, the beauty of youth and foulness of old age, the torments of realization and bitterness of disappointments - everything harmonizes in the repetition of words on the strong thread of the idea.

No Entry to the Performance Hall after the Third Bell. Short stories

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

2017

No Entry to the Performance Hall after the Third Bell. Short stories

by Oksana Zabuzhko

This collection includes the best short prose by the most successful Ukrainian female author. The reader will find here both recognized masterpieces that have been translated into many languages and sperformed on numerous European stages ("Alien", "Girls", "The Tale of the Guelder Rose Flute"), and little-known youthful attempts in various prose genres. The book concludes with a recently written story, which sums up the history of an entire generation, the "deferred war generation", through the drama of the misunderstanding between a mother and her daughter.

Not Only Kobzar. The Anthology of Ukrainian literature. 1792–1883 (in two books)

Anthologies (non-poetry)

2021

Not Only Kobzar. The Anthology of Ukrainian literature. 1792–1883 (in two books)

by Mykhailo Nazarenko

Ukrainian literature of the 19th century was far more exciting and diverse than one might imagine. Mykhailo Nazarenko's anthology contains one hundred and fifty texts that are not known or very little known to the modern reader (some of them are reprinted for the first time after 150 years of oblivion). These texts help to understand Ukrainian literary movement in a wider context. The compilation starts with the "The Song of the Black Sea Army" by Anton Golovaty. This novel precedes the famous "Aeneid" and marks the beginning of the printed literature "in the contemporary Ukrainian language". "It is not time..." by Ivan Franko is the last one in the compilation and describes further evolution of the independent Ukrainian literary word. The compilation also contains fifty essays about each of the authors: why did they write in a particular that way and about what? Why did some turn out to be forgotten, while others are remembered for their works?

Thriller / suspense

2022

Porcelain Doll

by Natalia Chajkovska

Martha's husband was found dead. Friends express their condolencess to her, but Martha finally feels free. It all started 5 years ago. Martha was going through a difficult period after her mother's death. So, when she met the man who proposed to her, she did not hesitate, believing that a new start will help to overcome her loss. But soon something strange began to happen. Martha's life turned into hell. And, it seemed, there was only one way out of this hell ...

Relationships

2021

Radio Night

by Yurii Andrukhovych

Andrukhovych’s hero, rock musician Joseph Rotsky, supported the revolution in his home country by being a "barricade pianist". Forced into exile, he earns his living playing salon music. In a Swiss hotel he is forced to perform for his country’s dictator. He throws an egg at him, accidentally killing him. After his release from prison, Rotsky retreats to the Carpathian Mountains, where he is soon found by secret service agents and other sinister characters who are out to get him. His escape takes him as far as Greece – with his raven Edgar and his lover Animé as his faithful companions. He ends up on a prison island on the prime meridian, where he hosts his own radio programme: "Radio Night" – his own label that allows him to broadcast music, poetry and good stories into a darkening world. Yurii Andrukhovych’s long awaited new novel, a revolutionary saga, biographical burlesque and agent thriller set against the backdrop of the immediate present – Andrukhovych pulls out all the artistic stops to counter the fears and real threats with the sovereignty of imagination. Radio Night received great acclaim from readers and critics alike.

Roksolana. Union with the Jagiellonians: a historical novel: book. 1

Historical fiction

2021

Roksolana. Union with the Jagiellonians: a historical novel: book. 1

by Oleksandra Shutko

The novel covers the events in the life of the Ukrainian Roksolana (Hürrem Sultan) - the wife of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, which took place in 1540-1551, when she was at the zenith of glory and power. This woman had a significant influence on the policy of the Ottoman Empire. She mediated the Sultan's man to establish good neighborly relations with the Polish Jagiellonian dynasty, Queen Isabella of Hungary, her mother Bona Sforza, and her brother, King Sigismund II of Poland. The novel is based on Roksolana's love and diplomatic correspondence, archival documents, reports of European ambassadors in Istanbul, Ottoman chroniclers, and information from thorough investigations by Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, German, Italian, and American historians. In the novel, not only the events and characters are real, but even their dialogues, which history has preserved to this day.

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

2022

Save March

by Andrii Kokotiukha

Anatolii is a taxi driver, and his wife Lesia is a folklorist, who researches fairytales. They have two children- the eldest daughter Julia and little Bohdan, as well as the girl’s favorite kitty Emma. On the first day of the Russian invasion, Anatolii witnessed a mass evacuation from Kyiv. But he is convinced that everything will end soon. His confidence is transferred to Lesia, but she is afraid to stay in Kyiv at a time when the city is being bombed. Lesia insists that the family leave the city and go to a small village named Antonivka, where they would be safe. But fate plays tricks with them and the village ends up under the control of invaders. The story tells about the life of a young family that has survived the hell of occupation but hasn’t lost its humanity.

Science fiction

2019

Strange People

by Artem Chapeye

Ukrainian scientists have reproduced Neanderthal DNA. One of the representatives of this species, Stepan Vovk, grows up in a secret institute disguised as a garage. He is released form the institute after reaching adulthood. Due to the lack of life experience and mental peculiarities, the Neanderthal constantly finds himself in strange situations. He looks at the local homo sapiens through the eyes of a somewhat naive outsider. The story is a tragicomedy about our contemporary world.

Fiction

October 2004

Sweet Darusya

by Maria Matios

Sweet Darusya, Maria Matios’ best-known novel, has been rightly called "a tragedy matching the history of the 20th century", and Darusya herself is "an almost biblical figure". This “drama in three lives” has nothing unambiguous: neither characters nor circumstances nor resolution. There are no epoch-making people or events, heroes or villains, but, as one critic noted, "your heart breaks when you read this book." Sweet Darusya recreates the true spirit of the past through a family saga and touches upon topics that until now prevent a part of modern society from perceiving Ukrainian history without omissions, censorship and irritability. This unique view that Maria Matios offers in this novel, measures the essence of human urges, suffering, true love, and human nature in general. Authentic writing style, deep psychologism, and a complex plot that unfolds in reverse chronological order create a unique piece of prose.

War & combat fiction

2021

THE DREAMTIME

by Mstyslav Chernov

The Dreamtime is a novel, written by Mstyslav Chernov, a war reporter working for Associate Press, and released in 2021 by Sammit-Knyha Publishing House. “Dreamtime” is a 460-page fusion of a documentary and a psychological thriller. The book is based on real events and has been written over an eight-year period. Drawing on the Indigenous Australians’ concept of the dreamtime, the novel explores a social collective experience of war and conflict and is based on real events witnessed by the author during the war in eastern Ukraine and the migration crisis in southern Europe over the recent years. It comprises four intertwined plots spanning in space from Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas to southern Europe and southeast Asia, tied together by themes of existential conflict and the blurred line between reality and dreams. The novel is published in Ukrainian. It was well-received by critics and praised for its realism in depicting war, for its creative literary depiction of how dreams reflect the psyche, and for its "serious" and "skillful” prose. The book was nominated for the BBC News Ukraine Book of the Year Award.

Historical fiction

2022

The Age of the Red Ants

by Tanya Pyankova

In spring of 1933 the famine in Machukhy came to its climax. The first case of cannibalism, lynch law, malnutrition-related mental disorders. The village lives in degradation. People are desperate, and they lose their humanity, they are ready to eat everything to survive. And here are two stranger women, two victims of their time, two opposite sides of the great darkness, called hunger, are at arm's length… Young Yavdokha, madness-like insight — and Solya, the holy blindness. One is killed by hunger — the other one is saved. One is promised to have eternal night — the other one is given hope for a happy renewal. And they do not know yet that they go towards each other. They go in order eventually to hug one another and to build a fragile bridge over the insatiable anthill of their torturers…

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

2021

The Death of Cecil the Lion Made Sense

by Olena Stiazhkina

This is the first novel Olena Styazhkina wrote in Ukrainian, and the theme of embracing Ukrainian identity is central to the plot. It takes place in Donbas over the course of several years: the reader follows the journeys of characters who are, at first, held back by Soviet mentalities. As a result of war, they undergo important changes relating to their understanding of themselves and their country, like the dentist who becomes a military surgeon or the cosmetics saleswoman who becomes a sniper shooting instructor. The characters go through a whirlpool of historical events and are reborn as Ukrainians.

Crime & mystery

2021

The Empress’ First Investigation

by Natalka Sniadanko

The rare violin, which was played by Mozart, is usually not taken abroad. An exception was made for the festival in Lviv, but no one even supposed that this would become an important link in the whole chain of terrible events. Unexpectedly for everyone and herself, the legendary Austrian Empress Sissy successfully investigates not only the mysterious attempt on her husband, but also a number of other mysteries. Natalka Sniadanko's new novel based on documentary materials about the life and adventures of the imperial family immerses the reader in a stunning detective story with political implications. An additional intrigue to this story is given by the two-dimensional plot story, due to which the events of the mid-19th century suddenly echo poignantly in Lviv at the beginning of the third millennium.

The Girl with a Teddy Bear. Doctor Seraficus

Classic fiction (pre c 1945)

2019

The Girl with a Teddy Bear. Doctor Seraficus

by V. Domontovych

This book contains two of the most famous works of V. Domontovych. One of them is an engaging and somewhat extravagant novel The Girl with a Teddy Bear that describes the love of a sagacious teacher and his rebellious student. The novel is also a brilliant example of intellectual prose about the changing cultural orientations and the tragic personal conflict of a person destined to live in the time of change. The second one is Doctor Seraficus. It is the story of a strange and infantile ascetic professor who preaches a peculiar sort of “Don Juanism in reverse”: the desire to love all women and denounce all of them simultaneously.

Crime & mystery

2019

The Great Prussia Hotel

by Bohdan Kolomiychuk

It’s 1905 in Europe. Russia is losing the war with Japan and is now concentrating its forces in the West. Specifically, hundreds of Russian entrepreneurs head to Austria-Hungary and Prussia to establish business relationships, agents of the Russian Okhranka secret police and members of Russia’s criminal underworld disguised among them. Meanwhile, in the Austrian city of Lviv, the career of Criminal Police Commissar Adam Wistowicz advances. He’s one of the best investigators in Halychyna (Galicia), whose reputation is well known even in the empire’s capital, Vienna. Wistowicz’s ex-wife Anna Kalisch, an actress of the Berlin Shauspielhaus, unexpectedly finds herself in the middle of the ruthless whirlpool. In despair, she sends the commissar a telegram, begging for help. Between two fires, in foreign Prussia, Wistowicz takes on the most dangerous case of his life. He finds himself in the Royal Opera House, among communists in a German pub, in the luxury Great Prussia Hotel in Posen, then one on one with a maniac in the middle of an empty square… Teetering at knifepoint between life and death, winning crazy amounts of money and subsequently losing it, and confronting a powerful enemy with only intelligence and adroitness, the commissar from faraway Halychyna brilliantly brings the case to a close… and proves victorious.

Fiction

2015

The House in Baiting Hollow

by Vasyl Makhno

Events, described by Vasyl Makhno in a debut collection of short prose, are happening at different times and in different places, and no matter who the storyteller is – a man over fifty, a grey-headed widow or a little boy – you believe them; because there are no author’s generalizations, conclusions or guidelines. These impartial stories tell us about fates of completely different people, honestly and without pathos. It is honesty and simplicity that make this prose so different; common and simple details, at first sight, add mystery and hold the reader in suspense throughout the entire book.

Crime & mystery

2015

The Last Wish

by Eugenia Kononenko

The manuscript has been lost several years ago. Perhaps then it was not the time to read it. But 15 years later, in the age of the developed Internet and social networks, the writer's son receives back a notebook with a puppy on the cover. And it was that very notebook in which the old sick writer wrote his last novel, 'The Last Wish'. Is it necessary and possible to solve all the secrets of the past? At least it is worth striving for. Only conscious knowledge gives that freedom, without which the birth of a conscious person of the future, who would become the master of his or her own destiny under any conditions, is impossible.

Sagas

2019

The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

by Oksana Zabuzhko

This novel has been recognized by Ukrainian and foreign critics not only as the most outstanding work of Ukrainian literature since independence, but also as one of the most important in all Eastern European literature since the fall of communism. Awarded the Central European Literary Prize "Angelus" (2013), translated into English, German, Polish, Czech, Russian, repeatedly awarded as "Book of the Year" (in Ukraine, Germany, Switzerland, Poland), "Museum of Abandoned Secrets", Nobel novel class ”(Newsweek Polska); rightly became the calling card of new Ukrainian literature. This is a modern epos of contemporary Ukraine: a family saga of three generations, the events of which cover the period from the 1940s to the spring of 2004. Great literature and ugly truth about the power of the past over the future, about love, betrayal and death, about the original war of man for the right to be himself.

Fiction

October 2008

The Passion Collection

by Natalka Sniadanko

You are about to see the passion collection of a girl "from a decent Galician family" during her coming-of-age years. It contains not only common passions in Ukrainian and Russian but also more exotic ones, in Italian and German and a few aristocratic passions as well. Every time the girl tries to understand whether it is passion or love? And whether you can distinguish passion from love is up to you.

Fiction

October 2013

The Same Thing Ever

by Taras Prokhasko

Taras Prokhasko's book attempts to explain, above all to himself, what is going on beyond oneself. It is a kind of para-essays and para-journalism. Whereas there are few topics that would really interest the author, since one has to repeat the things that seem important in many ways and on the daily basis, the title is "Odnoi I Toi Samoi", i.e. – The Same Thing Ever..."This book was in the long list of the BBC Ukraine Book of the Year 2013 Award.

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