Modern Animal

by Yevgenia Belorusets, Евгения Белорусец, Євгенія Бєлорусець

Yevgenia Belorusets is a journalist, photographer, writer, and recent recipient of the HKW International Literature Prize. Working between Berlin and Kyiv, writing between Ukrainian and Russian, documenting the lives of the displaced and disenfranchised (and even non-human), Belorusets defies typical definition and strict political boundaries.

In MODERN ANIMAL, without judgement or simplification, Belorusets provides intimate revelations of human-animal relationships: how we shape each other, use each other, and, at times, cross the lines that distinguish us from one another. In conversation, she finds the lost and forgotten remains of something pagan, but still irrepressibly modern.

“Between what you can see and conceive and what is concealed and inconceivable, you will find—an animal.”

271 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first received this book last year, I was uncertain how to approach this seemingly odd collection of vignettes that blend the lives of animals and humans. I was trying to find a thread and could not. So I put it aside. And then Russia invaded Ukraine. And I began to follow the author's daily diary entries from Kyiv on the Isolarii site. And I realized that this book that evolved out of years of interviewing the victims of the Russian Ukranian conflict in the Donbas region, interviews that found their form in metaphorical fictions involving animals. But the harsh truths of war leak through and are now echoing across Ukraine. And this little palm-sized volume grew in my hands, becoming more chillingly relevant with every passing day.
A longer review here: https://roughghosts.com/2022/03/09/i-...

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really click with me. I really wanted to like this as the concept seemed interesting and Belorusets uniquely approaches our relationship(s) with animals, but it fell rather flat. That being said, Peter Greenaway's online-only foreword of 19 mini-tales is fabulous: https://isolarii.com/media/pages/home...

Matt McCarthy, MegaCyclops
(this has nothing directly to do with the book; I just like it)

[David Macpherson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of stories about animals and our relationship to them. It is mean and absurdist. Some of the writing is wonderful and lyrical, it just didn't connect to me. I found myself forcing myself to keep reading and that's not a good feeling.

[Freddy Del · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was about animals, and I appreciate the overarching point of the book, but it was so boring. There were some good parts, but they didn’t make up for how boring it was overall.

[Alik Shehadeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

weird. challenging intellectually without being challenging to read/absorb