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I Will Die in a Foreign Land
* 2022 Young Lions Fiction Award, Winner.* A BookBrowse "20 Best Books of 2022"* VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, Longlist.* An ABA "Indie Next List" pick for November 2021.* "A Best Book of 2021" —New York Public Library, Cosmopolitan, Independent Book Review* "October 2021 Must-Reads" —Debutiful, The Chicago Review of Books, The Millions
In 1913, a Russian ballet incited a riot in Paris at the new Théâtre de Champs-Elysées. “Only a Russian could do that," says Aleksandr Ivanovich. “Only a Russian could make the whole world go mad.”
A century later, in November 2013, thousands of Ukrainian citizens gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to protest then-President Yanukovych’s failure to sign a referendum with the European Union, opting instead to forge a closer alliance with President Vladimir Putin and Russia. The peaceful protests turned violent when military police shot live ammunition into the crowd, killing over a hundred civilians.
I Will Die in a Foreign Land follows four individuals over the course of a volatile Ukrainian winter, as their lives are forever changed by the Euromaidan protests. Katya is an Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic in St. Michael’s Monastery; Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, who has lived in Kyiv since his wife’s death; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination in the face of persecution; and Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, who climbs atop a burned-out police bus at Independence Square and plays the piano.
As Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr’s lives become intertwined, they each seek their own solace during an especially tumultuous and violent period. The story is also told by a chorus of voices that incorporates folklore and narrates a turbulent Slavic history.
While unfolding an especially moving story of quiet beauty and love in a time of terror, I Will Die in a Foreign Land is an ambitious, intimate, and haunting portrait of human perseverance and empathy.
"Kalani Pickhart's timely debut novel, I Will Die In a Foreign Land, is about the 2014 Ukrainian revolution which provided a pretense for Russia to annex Crimea. The story follows the experiences of several characters whose lives intersect as the country's political situation deteriorates. There's a Ukrainian-American doctor, an old KGB spy, a former mine worker, and others, and these episodes are interspersed with folk songs, news reports and historical notes. The effect—kaleidoscopic but never confusing—provides an intimate sense of a country convulsing, mourning, and somehow surviving."—CBS News, "The Book Recommendations from Washington Post critic Ron Charles"(Watch the full video on CBS News, February 6, 2022).
In 1913, a Russian ballet incited a riot in Paris at the new Théâtre de Champs-Elysées. “Only a Russian could do that," says Aleksandr Ivanovich. “Only a Russian could make the whole world go mad.”
A century later, in November 2013, thousands of Ukrainian citizens gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to protest then-President Yanukovych’s failure to sign a referendum with the European Union, opting instead to forge a closer alliance with President Vladimir Putin and Russia. The peaceful protests turned violent when military police shot live ammunition into the crowd, killing over a hundred civilians.
I Will Die in a Foreign Land follows four individuals over the course of a volatile Ukrainian winter, as their lives are forever changed by the Euromaidan protests. Katya is an Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic in St. Michael’s Monastery; Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, who has lived in Kyiv since his wife’s death; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination in the face of persecution; and Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, who climbs atop a burned-out police bus at Independence Square and plays the piano.
As Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr’s lives become intertwined, they each seek their own solace during an especially tumultuous and violent period. The story is also told by a chorus of voices that incorporates folklore and narrates a turbulent Slavic history.
While unfolding an especially moving story of quiet beauty and love in a time of terror, I Will Die in a Foreign Land is an ambitious, intimate, and haunting portrait of human perseverance and empathy.
"Kalani Pickhart's timely debut novel, I Will Die In a Foreign Land, is about the 2014 Ukrainian revolution which provided a pretense for Russia to annex Crimea. The story follows the experiences of several characters whose lives intersect as the country's political situation deteriorates. There's a Ukrainian-American doctor, an old KGB spy, a former mine worker, and others, and these episodes are interspersed with folk songs, news reports and historical notes. The effect—kaleidoscopic but never confusing—provides an intimate sense of a country convulsing, mourning, and somehow surviving."—CBS News, "The Book Recommendations from Washington Post critic Ron Charles"(Watch the full video on CBS News, February 6, 2022).
326 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 19, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 520 reviews
May 11, 2022
I’m inhaling reads of Ukraine. They add more historical context and credibility to these incredibly resilient people with their determination and relentlessness to secure the freedom they have come to value. Democracy.
Did you know “Ukraine” means country?
This is a razor sharp story of what transpired during the 2014 revolution. It follows 4 people during this volatile time. A doctor, a former KBG agent, an engineer & an activist. Their survival and the relationships that develop and how they become entwined. Characters authentically broken but finding redemption.
The writing. OMG. A Stunning debut. Such a contrast to the violence.
This was a heavy read but a beautifully poetic one. This war - comes at a high cost -for what is rightfully theirs for the short time they have had it. Russia -Putin- wrestling to break these people and to reclaim land that once was theirs.
And the world watches.
5⭐️
Did you know “Ukraine” means country?
This is a razor sharp story of what transpired during the 2014 revolution. It follows 4 people during this volatile time. A doctor, a former KBG agent, an engineer & an activist. Their survival and the relationships that develop and how they become entwined. Characters authentically broken but finding redemption.
The writing. OMG. A Stunning debut. Such a contrast to the violence.
This was a heavy read but a beautifully poetic one. This war - comes at a high cost -for what is rightfully theirs for the short time they have had it. Russia -Putin- wrestling to break these people and to reclaim land that once was theirs.
And the world watches.
5⭐️
April 16, 2022
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine is, sadly, dominating the news right now. Kalani Pickhart’s debut, I Will Die in a Foreign Land, is set in Kyiv eight years earlier, during the 2014 Maidan Revolution, and depicts the events of 2014 from the vantage of several sympathetic characters. For what it aims to do, the characters are well drawn and the narrative compelling. Were it not for the present circumstances, and the vital need to understand the rise of Ukrainian nationalism in context, I would have enjoyed this more. But as sympathetic as Ukraine may be in 2022, this book is not the place to find context. The 2014 revolution was in some respects quite problematic - it was a coup against a democratically elected government, fought in part by far right militias who were animated by ethno-nationalist and neo-N*zi ideology. That is not to disparage the 2014 Revolution or lend credence to Russian propaganda. The rise of an ethno-national identity is always fraught and Maidan was ideologically complex in a way that this story completely sidesteps. This book may seem timely but, to me, it reads like a propaganda piece that fits in with the already-standard narrative in the west. I hope we can condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine without the need to whitewash Ukraine’s problematic recent past.
January 15, 2022
Last fall, Kalani Pickhart published a debut novel called “I Will Die in a Foreign Land.” To be honest — unknown author, tiny press, little publicity — I just set it aside. But through the intervention of some literary angel or my own laziness, the book kept hanging around the living room. Finally, I noticed it’s about the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that forced out President Yanukovych and served as a pretense for Vladimir Putin to steal Crimea.
Given the tragic relevance of that subject, this week I tore through “I Will Die in a Foreign Land.” It’s terrific. I’ve been following the alarming news about Putin’s machinations along the Ukrainian border, but nothing has given me such a profound impression of what Ukrainians have endured as this intensely moving novel.
The story follows the experiences of several characters whose lives intersect as the country’s political situation deteriorates. There’s a Ukrainian-American doctor struggling to treat injured protesters, an old KGB spy seeking forgiveness, a former mine worker and others — all of them freighted with grief and trying to stay alive amid the volatile conditions of the revolution. These episodes are frequently interspersed with folk songs, news reports and historical notes that flesh out the larger context. The effect — kaleidoscopic but never confusing — provides an intimate sense of a nation mourning, convulsing and somehow surviving.
Pickhart, who works at the Design School at Arizona State University, tells me, “I am deeply saddened that since I started writing this book in 2016, tensions have only escalated in Ukraine.” She’s alarmed that Putin’s politics reflect Stalin’s policy of Russification, which involves the “erasure of the Ukrainian people, their culture and their language.”
In 2020, during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly swore at an NPR reporter and scoffed, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” Reading Pickhart’s remarkable novel is one way to answer that question.
Given the tragic relevance of that subject, this week I tore through “I Will Die in a Foreign Land.” It’s terrific. I’ve been following the alarming news about Putin’s machinations along the Ukrainian border, but nothing has given me such a profound impression of what Ukrainians have endured as this intensely moving novel.
The story follows the experiences of several characters whose lives intersect as the country’s political situation deteriorates. There’s a Ukrainian-American doctor struggling to treat injured protesters, an old KGB spy seeking forgiveness, a former mine worker and others — all of them freighted with grief and trying to stay alive amid the volatile conditions of the revolution. These episodes are frequently interspersed with folk songs, news reports and historical notes that flesh out the larger context. The effect — kaleidoscopic but never confusing — provides an intimate sense of a nation mourning, convulsing and somehow surviving.
Pickhart, who works at the Design School at Arizona State University, tells me, “I am deeply saddened that since I started writing this book in 2016, tensions have only escalated in Ukraine.” She’s alarmed that Putin’s politics reflect Stalin’s policy of Russification, which involves the “erasure of the Ukrainian people, their culture and their language.”
In 2020, during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly swore at an NPR reporter and scoffed, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” Reading Pickhart’s remarkable novel is one way to answer that question.
October 19, 2023
Update 10/30/2022: Refreshed and restored I have continued thinking of this stellar work and I am bumping my rating up to 5 stars.
Kalani Pickhart's debut novel I Will Die in a Foreign Land deals with events in Russia, Ukraine, and Czechoslovakia over the past 100 years. The main part of her story is set in 2014 during the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine. She braids together the stories of her 4 main characters, the story of each filling out the stories of the others creating a richer tapestry. She uses the device of traditional Ukrainian folk singers called the Kobzari as a Greek chorus to provide historical information, to weigh situations, and to contribute insights. Pickhart uses the voice of the Kobzari as well as newspaper articles to inform the reader of events when they are important to the story rather then when they happen chronologically. The timeline at the beginning of the novel is extremely helpful.
I am drawn into this story of Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr and feel for each of them as they try to find their places in this tumult and to answer the question what is home. Pickhart puts names and faces on the protesters, the journalists, the civilians, and reminds me of the disappeared, in 2014 and throughout the past 100 years.
I love the thread of music that runs through the story: the bells, the piano player in the Maiden, and the songs of the Kobzari. "Music . . . is a powerful and dangerous thing. . . . We must do all we can to protect it." Like all art, songs can challenge ideas, get people to look at situations and events differently, and threaten the authorities.
Sung by Kobzari
"Think of Berlin:
In one night in August 1961, a wall was built, separating brother from brother.
Mother from son,
Father from daughter.
And so it is in Ukraine: overnight, our neighbor is our enemy.
But there is no wall here:
there are only terminals --
Donetsk Airport.
Kerch.
No Man's Land.
When we shoot, we kill a neighbor.
When we shoot, we kill ourselves.
In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."
A note to my GR friends, despite how effective it can be when done well (as it is here) I am weary of these highly structured novels and will seek linear stories for my next several reads.
Publication 2021
Kalani Pickhart's debut novel I Will Die in a Foreign Land deals with events in Russia, Ukraine, and Czechoslovakia over the past 100 years. The main part of her story is set in 2014 during the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine. She braids together the stories of her 4 main characters, the story of each filling out the stories of the others creating a richer tapestry. She uses the device of traditional Ukrainian folk singers called the Kobzari as a Greek chorus to provide historical information, to weigh situations, and to contribute insights. Pickhart uses the voice of the Kobzari as well as newspaper articles to inform the reader of events when they are important to the story rather then when they happen chronologically. The timeline at the beginning of the novel is extremely helpful.
I am drawn into this story of Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr and feel for each of them as they try to find their places in this tumult and to answer the question what is home. Pickhart puts names and faces on the protesters, the journalists, the civilians, and reminds me of the disappeared, in 2014 and throughout the past 100 years.
I love the thread of music that runs through the story: the bells, the piano player in the Maiden, and the songs of the Kobzari. "Music . . . is a powerful and dangerous thing. . . . We must do all we can to protect it." Like all art, songs can challenge ideas, get people to look at situations and events differently, and threaten the authorities.
Sung by Kobzari
"Think of Berlin:
In one night in August 1961, a wall was built, separating brother from brother.
Mother from son,
Father from daughter.
And so it is in Ukraine: overnight, our neighbor is our enemy.
But there is no wall here:
there are only terminals --
Donetsk Airport.
Kerch.
No Man's Land.
When we shoot, we kill a neighbor.
When we shoot, we kill ourselves.
In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."
A note to my GR friends, despite how effective it can be when done well (as it is here) I am weary of these highly structured novels and will seek linear stories for my next several reads.
Publication 2021
April 15, 2022
"In one night in August 1961, a wall was built, separating brother from brother.
Mother from son.
Father from daughter.
And so it is in Ukraine: overnight, our neighbor becomes our enemy.
But there is no wall here:
there are only terminals --
Donetsk Airport. Kerch. No Man's Land.
When we shoot, we kill a neighbor.
When we shoot, we kill ourselves.
In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."(pg 203)
▫️I WILL DIE IN A FOREIGN LAND by Kalani Pickhart, 2021 from Two Dollar Radio.
A work of historical fiction set around the events of the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine in 2014. Throughout the text, we follow 4 characters: a Chernobyl survivor, an artist activist, a Ukranian-American doctor, and an elderly pianist with a history in espionage share first person narratives, weaving in and out of each other's lives.
The book is rich in Ukranian history and culture, with interstitial chapters written in verse - like the one shared above - in the style of the Kobzari, Ukranian bards/folk storytellers. Other chapters are written in letters, newspaper articles, or transcripts of audio cassettes, airline manifests, and propaganda posters.
The tragedy of war, but also the deep human connections that come in times of trauma - people who band together and experience deeply, in loss, pain, and fear.
A magnificent debut by Pickhart, and it goes without saying that it could not be more relevant... The characters in the book say again and again after the occupation of Crimea (in this 2014 story timeline) that Putin will be back from more...
"The West calls it a conflict.
Ukranians say:
Ah, ah.
Oh my friend.
We have seen it all before."
Mother from son.
Father from daughter.
And so it is in Ukraine: overnight, our neighbor becomes our enemy.
But there is no wall here:
there are only terminals --
Donetsk Airport. Kerch. No Man's Land.
When we shoot, we kill a neighbor.
When we shoot, we kill ourselves.
In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."(pg 203)
▫️I WILL DIE IN A FOREIGN LAND by Kalani Pickhart, 2021 from Two Dollar Radio.
A work of historical fiction set around the events of the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine in 2014. Throughout the text, we follow 4 characters: a Chernobyl survivor, an artist activist, a Ukranian-American doctor, and an elderly pianist with a history in espionage share first person narratives, weaving in and out of each other's lives.
The book is rich in Ukranian history and culture, with interstitial chapters written in verse - like the one shared above - in the style of the Kobzari, Ukranian bards/folk storytellers. Other chapters are written in letters, newspaper articles, or transcripts of audio cassettes, airline manifests, and propaganda posters.
The tragedy of war, but also the deep human connections that come in times of trauma - people who band together and experience deeply, in loss, pain, and fear.
A magnificent debut by Pickhart, and it goes without saying that it could not be more relevant... The characters in the book say again and again after the occupation of Crimea (in this 2014 story timeline) that Putin will be back from more...
"The West calls it a conflict.
Ukranians say:
Ah, ah.
Oh my friend.
We have seen it all before."
March 29, 2022
I thought this was an excellent and exceptional novel, that I chose to read because it is too distressing and overwhelming to be bombarded with only the terrible news that is flooding us at the moment.
Rather than look away, here is a novel, whose intention is to pay homage to those who wish to preserve a culture, to protect their homes, to help the wounded, to ease the suffering of the dying, to sing their songs and tell their stories.
The author is American, passionate about Ukranian history and culture and began to write this story in 2016, in the aftermath of the American elections. In an interview with New Lines’ Lydia Wilson, Kalani Pickhart talks about her motivation and inspiration for creating this novel, which has come to the world at a time when many are trying to understand how these terrible patterns continue to repeat, and searching for some hope in a humanity that appears at times to have gone mad.
There are four main characters who the novel follows, and the story is set during the 2013-2014 period following protests at Euromaidan, Kyiv after the then President refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union, and was rumoured to have signed a trade agreement with Russia, sparking protests and violence in the city.
The threads of human stories are brilliantly told though the four main characters, as well as snippets of reportage to create context and by the collective voice and songs of the Kobzari (musicians whose lyrics narrate aspects of Ukranian history, culture, tradition). This collective voice slips into the narrative seamlessly, drip feeding the reader with an historical context.
The book begins with a timeline, a map and a snippet of reportage, all the chapters are relatively short, the narrative never overwhelms, like placing pieces of a jigsaw, as the story evolves, events unfold, geography is traversed, people respond to what confronts them, understanding broadens.
One of the characters, Katya is a Boston based, American doctor, working with the wounded inside a temporary medical clinic at St Michaels monastery. She is an outsider, drawn to the country because she was orphaned there, but grew up in America with no connection to her birth country. Hers, like the author, is an outside perspective, one that wants to know, to connect.
One of Katya's patients is a man they refer to as Captain, only known to people because he would play an outdoor piano every day on the street during the protests. Katya finds a telephone number and a cassette in his pocket. The Captain's story is narrated through the playing of an audio tape, created for his daughter Anna. He too is an outsider, a former KGB officer, as revealed through his tapes to his daughter.
Micha is a Ukranian protest, helping out, an engineer, originally from Chernobyl, who worked in the mines. He was married to his childhood friend Vera, who succumbed to sickness. His home is near where Katya was born, they return to visit his mother, to reconnect with a lost part of her, before her return.
Slava (another Ukranian protestor) and Micha are friends, she is from Odessa, a place she ran from after what happened to her there, something that fuels her determination. Slava meets a journalist Dascha, their relationship puts them both at risk.
Though it is novel told in fragments, through multiple narratives and voices, there is a fluidity and progression to the plot, as slowly the connection between the characters is revealed and their motivations and behaviours come to be understood.
Highly Recommended.
My blog review here
The Title
Rather than look away, here is a novel, whose intention is to pay homage to those who wish to preserve a culture, to protect their homes, to help the wounded, to ease the suffering of the dying, to sing their songs and tell their stories.
The author is American, passionate about Ukranian history and culture and began to write this story in 2016, in the aftermath of the American elections. In an interview with New Lines’ Lydia Wilson, Kalani Pickhart talks about her motivation and inspiration for creating this novel, which has come to the world at a time when many are trying to understand how these terrible patterns continue to repeat, and searching for some hope in a humanity that appears at times to have gone mad.
There are four main characters who the novel follows, and the story is set during the 2013-2014 period following protests at Euromaidan, Kyiv after the then President refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union, and was rumoured to have signed a trade agreement with Russia, sparking protests and violence in the city.
The threads of human stories are brilliantly told though the four main characters, as well as snippets of reportage to create context and by the collective voice and songs of the Kobzari (musicians whose lyrics narrate aspects of Ukranian history, culture, tradition). This collective voice slips into the narrative seamlessly, drip feeding the reader with an historical context.
The book begins with a timeline, a map and a snippet of reportage, all the chapters are relatively short, the narrative never overwhelms, like placing pieces of a jigsaw, as the story evolves, events unfold, geography is traversed, people respond to what confronts them, understanding broadens.
One of the characters, Katya is a Boston based, American doctor, working with the wounded inside a temporary medical clinic at St Michaels monastery. She is an outsider, drawn to the country because she was orphaned there, but grew up in America with no connection to her birth country. Hers, like the author, is an outside perspective, one that wants to know, to connect.
One of Katya's patients is a man they refer to as Captain, only known to people because he would play an outdoor piano every day on the street during the protests. Katya finds a telephone number and a cassette in his pocket. The Captain's story is narrated through the playing of an audio tape, created for his daughter Anna. He too is an outsider, a former KGB officer, as revealed through his tapes to his daughter.
Micha is a Ukranian protest, helping out, an engineer, originally from Chernobyl, who worked in the mines. He was married to his childhood friend Vera, who succumbed to sickness. His home is near where Katya was born, they return to visit his mother, to reconnect with a lost part of her, before her return.
Slava (another Ukranian protestor) and Micha are friends, she is from Odessa, a place she ran from after what happened to her there, something that fuels her determination. Slava meets a journalist Dascha, their relationship puts them both at risk.
Though it is novel told in fragments, through multiple narratives and voices, there is a fluidity and progression to the plot, as slowly the connection between the characters is revealed and their motivations and behaviours come to be understood.
Loss, when it occurs, has memory stronger than the mind, stronger than visual recollection patterned in the brain. It’s something the flesh knows, the muscles know, like a dancer reciting a step done hundreds of times, like a musician playing a song or a scale after decades without practice. It’s something the body knows, something the body is aware of while the mind adapts, responds, reacts.
Highly Recommended.
My blog review here
The Title
"The title comes from an English translation of a lyric from a Ukrainian lament, “Plyve Kacha” or “The Duckling Swims.” It’s a conversation between a young soldier going to war and his mother, asking who will bury him if he dies in a foreign land. This is an important song for survivors of the Euromaidan, as it was sung and played at a mass funeral in Kyiv, where the caskets of the victims of the police shootings were carried through the streets. " Kalani Pickhart
December 23, 2021
I started out telling myself I could not keep giving other writers at my publisher, Two Dollar Radio, five stars. So I read this debut quite cynically. But I fell in love. It is a deeply creative, passionate, revelatory work by an exciting writer. There's nothing to compare it to - Pickhart's voice is unique and strong, she's obviously extremely close to the subject. Her structure allowed me to learn the political and social back story of Ukraine's endless conflicts, while I was completely engaged with her traumatized characters. There is so much sadness here and an exhaustion of grief and yet she makes clear the sheer heroism of love. To act with love and kindness in face of violence, despair and oppression is brave and necessary and how we maintain our humanity.
April 15, 2022
I'm one of many people who felt drawn to reading more about Ukraine. This novel was already on my radar so I purchased it from Two Dollar Radio.
Publisher summary excerpt:
"[This novel] follows four individuals over the course of a volatile Ukrainian winter, as their lives are forever changed by the Euromaidan protests. Katya is a Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic in St. Michael’s Monastery; Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, who has lived in Kyiv since his wife’s death; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination in the face of persecution; and Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, climbs atop a burned-out police bus at Independence Square and plays the piano."
Set in 2013-14 but also rooted in the complexities of the past (from the mythical Rus to Cossacks to Chernobyl), alternating viewpoints include the four characters plus news articles, cassette recordings, songs, and more. It's very readable and brings the reader into the intimacy of the recent past for Ukraine. Honestly I was trying to read non-fiction about Stalin's war on Ukraine and was drawn back into fiction instead.
The author is not Ukrainian but is donating all proceeds of the book to relief orgs benefitting Ukrainian people at the time of this review.
One friend said they couldn't tell if I liked the book and my feelings are mixed - it has many techniques I like, the rotating perspectives, the various format types, the short chapters, the tidbits that send me off on research projects, for instance listening to the bells of St. Michaels in 2013 on YouTube (only the second time they were played as part of a conflict, the previous time was with the Mongols!) But it feels weird to say I liked a novel about a previous conflict when the country it's about it in such turmoil now with people dead in the street. It even took me a while to read because I struggled to return to a setting that doesn't even exist as it's described because of the Russian invasion, and the book is set only 8 years in the past. I can be quite the emotional reader sometimes.
This book has come up a few times on the Reading Envy podcast this year, and will also be mentioned on episode 245.
The author is not from Ukraine but is a bit of a subject matter expert, and also published this list of suggested books to read to learn more:
https://electricliterature.com/a-lite...
Publisher summary excerpt:
"[This novel] follows four individuals over the course of a volatile Ukrainian winter, as their lives are forever changed by the Euromaidan protests. Katya is a Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic in St. Michael’s Monastery; Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, who has lived in Kyiv since his wife’s death; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination in the face of persecution; and Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, climbs atop a burned-out police bus at Independence Square and plays the piano."
Set in 2013-14 but also rooted in the complexities of the past (from the mythical Rus to Cossacks to Chernobyl), alternating viewpoints include the four characters plus news articles, cassette recordings, songs, and more. It's very readable and brings the reader into the intimacy of the recent past for Ukraine. Honestly I was trying to read non-fiction about Stalin's war on Ukraine and was drawn back into fiction instead.
The author is not Ukrainian but is donating all proceeds of the book to relief orgs benefitting Ukrainian people at the time of this review.
One friend said they couldn't tell if I liked the book and my feelings are mixed - it has many techniques I like, the rotating perspectives, the various format types, the short chapters, the tidbits that send me off on research projects, for instance listening to the bells of St. Michaels in 2013 on YouTube (only the second time they were played as part of a conflict, the previous time was with the Mongols!) But it feels weird to say I liked a novel about a previous conflict when the country it's about it in such turmoil now with people dead in the street. It even took me a while to read because I struggled to return to a setting that doesn't even exist as it's described because of the Russian invasion, and the book is set only 8 years in the past. I can be quite the emotional reader sometimes.
This book has come up a few times on the Reading Envy podcast this year, and will also be mentioned on episode 245.
The author is not from Ukraine but is a bit of a subject matter expert, and also published this list of suggested books to read to learn more:
https://electricliterature.com/a-lite...
abandoned-dnf
June 5, 2024DNF'd @ 33%
What was I thinking? I've been terribly upset about what's happening in Ukraine. I'm pretty sensitive to start with, but this has really been getting to me. But, for goodness sakes... Is it any wonder? We're watching a WAR play out—LIVE, as it happens!😧 Who wouldn't be upset? So, I have to ask myself WHY, then, am I reading a book like this, at a time like this?... A book about Russia's previous invasion of Ukraine! When a GR friend, David, finished the book, he shared some very good reasons re: why it should be avoided. So, I've come to my senses and abandoned it.
What was I thinking? I've been terribly upset about what's happening in Ukraine. I'm pretty sensitive to start with, but this has really been getting to me. But, for goodness sakes... Is it any wonder? We're watching a WAR play out—LIVE, as it happens!😧 Who wouldn't be upset? So, I have to ask myself WHY, then, am I reading a book like this, at a time like this?... A book about Russia's previous invasion of Ukraine! When a GR friend, David, finished the book, he shared some very good reasons re: why it should be avoided. So, I've come to my senses and abandoned it.
March 28, 2022
I confess to knowing little about Ukraine....its history, its people, its culture. I've learned more about it in the past month, due to the horror occurring there. While I hesitated immersing myself in more "war" exposure, even through literature, this book called to me when I saw it reviewed here on GR. I'm glad I read it.
It's an interesting read with an unusual format, some of which likely went right over my head. But it did offer some historical context and a glimpse into important events in recent history for the Ukrainian people, and another dose of how amazing they seem to be as a culture.
The story follows four people as they live through what is known as the Euromaidan protests which occurred during the 2014 conflict; a doctor, an engineer and former mine worker, an activist, and a former KGB agent. As their lives are changed by the violence around them, we learn about who they were and what they had lived as they came to this pivotal moment in their country. The narrative about the people is interspersed with historical information and folk songs; hence the unusual format of the novel--it can seem disjointed and choppy at times. But, the characters make human and real the soundbites seen on our television sets or in Twitter feeds. As I read, there were familiar names, familiar cities, familiar tragedies mirroring our daily news, creating a surreal experience and an echoing question of "Why?"...."Why again?". These poor people.
While the flow of prose took adjusting to, there were many poignant and powerful moments:
"The Czech people--your people, your mother's people--did not see us as liberators. I feared I made a mistake by coming. I dared not write home about it. I dared not speak about it. I held my gun, but I doubted. God, I doubted. It was the first time in my life. .It wasn't the last."
"Do you only want to know that others agree? Then you aren't looking for democracy. You are looking for another version of extremism. The other side of a flipped coin. Fascism, communism--the bigger evil depends on what you survived"..."To ignore one reality over the other is dangerous because it is not fully the truth."
"Loss, when it occurs, has memory stronger than the mind, stronger than visual recollection patterned in the brain. It's something the flesh knows, the muscles know, like a dancer reciting a step done hundreds of times, like a musician plying a song or a scale after decades without practice. It's something the body knows, something the body is aware of while the mind adapts, responds, reacts."
"In the spring of 2014, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic are formed. Overnight, Kyiv had fallen asleep in peace and woken up at war."...."And so it is in Ukraine: overnight, our neighbor is our enemy."..."When we shoot, we kill a neighbor. When we shoot, we kill ourselves. In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."
In the Afterword:
"May this book be a worthy testament for the people of Ukraine."
Watching the valor, the determined spirit, the helping hands, the bursting into group song....reading this book....I have fallen in love with the Ukrainian people as they endure a repeat of what they thought was behind them.
It's an interesting read with an unusual format, some of which likely went right over my head. But it did offer some historical context and a glimpse into important events in recent history for the Ukrainian people, and another dose of how amazing they seem to be as a culture.
The story follows four people as they live through what is known as the Euromaidan protests which occurred during the 2014 conflict; a doctor, an engineer and former mine worker, an activist, and a former KGB agent. As their lives are changed by the violence around them, we learn about who they were and what they had lived as they came to this pivotal moment in their country. The narrative about the people is interspersed with historical information and folk songs; hence the unusual format of the novel--it can seem disjointed and choppy at times. But, the characters make human and real the soundbites seen on our television sets or in Twitter feeds. As I read, there were familiar names, familiar cities, familiar tragedies mirroring our daily news, creating a surreal experience and an echoing question of "Why?"...."Why again?". These poor people.
While the flow of prose took adjusting to, there were many poignant and powerful moments:
"The Czech people--your people, your mother's people--did not see us as liberators. I feared I made a mistake by coming. I dared not write home about it. I dared not speak about it. I held my gun, but I doubted. God, I doubted. It was the first time in my life. .It wasn't the last."
"Do you only want to know that others agree? Then you aren't looking for democracy. You are looking for another version of extremism. The other side of a flipped coin. Fascism, communism--the bigger evil depends on what you survived"..."To ignore one reality over the other is dangerous because it is not fully the truth."
"Loss, when it occurs, has memory stronger than the mind, stronger than visual recollection patterned in the brain. It's something the flesh knows, the muscles know, like a dancer reciting a step done hundreds of times, like a musician plying a song or a scale after decades without practice. It's something the body knows, something the body is aware of while the mind adapts, responds, reacts."
"In the spring of 2014, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic are formed. Overnight, Kyiv had fallen asleep in peace and woken up at war."...."And so it is in Ukraine: overnight, our neighbor is our enemy."..."When we shoot, we kill a neighbor. When we shoot, we kill ourselves. In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."
In the Afterword:
"May this book be a worthy testament for the people of Ukraine."
Watching the valor, the determined spirit, the helping hands, the bursting into group song....reading this book....I have fallen in love with the Ukrainian people as they endure a repeat of what they thought was behind them.
April 13, 2023
Somehow I made it through two thirds of this book, but ultimately I felt so disrespected by the author that I couldn't bear to read any more.
If you want an engaging and well written book about Ukraine, please do not read this. Choose any number of Ukrainian fiction writers whose books are available in English translation. The list is growing. For example, I would highly recommend The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (Zabuzhko) or Grey Bees (Kurkov) or even Voroshilovgrad (Zhadan) instead of wasting your time on this.
It's not the first time, but I'm seriously disappointed in the reviewers, journals and awards committees that rewarded this novel and its author.
The first third of the book was more or less interesting, as the key characters were sketched in the context of the drama of Maidan. "Sketched" unfortunately remained Pickhart's dominant method. The style of short chapters and the choice to combine a variety of literary forms to tell the story at first seemed potentially fresh and perhaps uniquely fitting to the confusing experience of Maidan specifically and the disparate strands of Ukraine's history that underpin those events.
But by about page 100, I encountered something very disappointing that began to ruin the book for me. In the chapter consisting of a newspaper wedding announcement for Aleksandr, the text revealed very starkly how little familiarity the author has for the cultural context she is writing about. Pickhart has no feel for the most basic way people's names work in Russian or Ukrainian. There are several examples all crowded into this one mess of a chapter that then are threaded through the book and continue to annoy the reader who has even a superficial understanding of the region.
I could list the mistakes - first names confused, patronymic forms completely misunderstood, clear signs the author doesn't know how basic common names sound or are spelled - but the point is not that Pickhart gets these details wrong so much as that she didn't understand how sparse her knowledge was and that she (and her publisher, Two Dollar Radio) had the temerity to publish this without engaging a good proofreader with local knowledge that could help correct such errors. It's frankly appalling and insulting that they did.
And I would be (was, for two hundred pages) willing to forgive these mistakes for the sake of a good novel, but the plot and characters and dialogue are all quite poor, and never go anywhere. I finally realized that the text is formatted in bursts of lines separated by blank spaces because Pickhart can't actually write dialogue; she only seems capable of writing snippets of Powerful, Enigmatic Text.
By the time in the course of the narrative when the Maidan protests themselves have finished, it's become very clear to the reader that Pickhart can't conceive of characters from the region who aren't broken, mournful, dealing with some terrible tragedy as the singular defining feature of how they move through life. (Nor can the author conceive of many realistic situations that her characters might find themselves in. Slava returns to her father in a slovenly *standalone house* in the city of Odesa? Aleksandr's wife picks him up from the train station upon his return from serving in the Soviet army intervention in Prague *in their own personally owned car* in Moscow 1968? Katya makes jam from freshly picked berries by mashing them with a mortar and pestle, not boiling them with sugar, and also somehow eats freshly picked mushrooms *in late March*? People in Kyiv and Donetsk go down to *the corner bar* and order "a drink" or "a vodka" to have a conversation? Really?! All of these are highly improbable, almost laughably so. That poor grasp of the atmospherics reminded me of the terrible novel A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles, whose feel for the place, and particularly the time and politically violent context, was similarly tone deaf -actually, a much better written novel than Pickhart's, but the depiction of the early Soviet and Stalinist purge era in a slapstick mode was what made it disgusting.)
Pickhart does not see the people of Ukraine or of Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union more broadly as fully fledged human beings who can be depicted in a normal mode, simply living everyday, mundane lives. Again, I come back to the idea of respect, or disrespect. It feels like the author loads too much onto her characters. Each of them is colored by some exaggerated tragedy to be pitied, and ultimately that is my takeaway about Pickhart's view (and maybe everyone crowing about the book?) of the people of Ukraine and maybe more generally Eastern Europe: they are only objects for our pity, our condescension. All of the novel's characters have either lost a close loved one in a life-altering tragic situation, been trafficked, suffered the Chernobyl nuclear accident at close range, suffered domestic abuse - and none of them can have a natural conversation or interaction. I'm not trying to belittle those fictional backstories or dispute the idea that in reality many of us - likely more than we know - have been formed by traumatic experiences. I just don't find it realistic or good fiction to weigh the prose depiction of the characters down with their trauma at every moment.
I approached this book with a lot of good will toward the author, but by the end of my reading I feel honestly quite angry - partially at the author, but mainly for those who helped her publish or promoted this book. I have read or listened to enough of Pickhart's commentary about the book to know that she understands some of the ethical considerations involved in writing this book, as an American. I don't fault an American (like me) who seeks to give expression to these experiences, but I do fault a person who doesn't have the requisite knowledge or background for getting in over their head. I don't subscribe to the point of view that experience can't be depicted in fiction by someone who doesn't share the specific identity or lived experience, but I do believe it should not be undertaken lightly or without a great deal of preparation. I think it would be imperative to get help from someone who does actually share the experience or have the full background to get any attempt at this right.
Final nitpick: in the bio at the back of the book, the author says she received a research fellowship from the "U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies" - the bureau is of Intelligence and Research, and I really don't think they award fellowships. She may have received an award to support her research that was funded by the Dept of State, but - again - you lose my respect when you can't even properly cite the organization or mechanism that funded your work.
If you want an engaging and well written book about Ukraine, please do not read this. Choose any number of Ukrainian fiction writers whose books are available in English translation. The list is growing. For example, I would highly recommend The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (Zabuzhko) or Grey Bees (Kurkov) or even Voroshilovgrad (Zhadan) instead of wasting your time on this.
It's not the first time, but I'm seriously disappointed in the reviewers, journals and awards committees that rewarded this novel and its author.
The first third of the book was more or less interesting, as the key characters were sketched in the context of the drama of Maidan. "Sketched" unfortunately remained Pickhart's dominant method. The style of short chapters and the choice to combine a variety of literary forms to tell the story at first seemed potentially fresh and perhaps uniquely fitting to the confusing experience of Maidan specifically and the disparate strands of Ukraine's history that underpin those events.
But by about page 100, I encountered something very disappointing that began to ruin the book for me. In the chapter consisting of a newspaper wedding announcement for Aleksandr, the text revealed very starkly how little familiarity the author has for the cultural context she is writing about. Pickhart has no feel for the most basic way people's names work in Russian or Ukrainian. There are several examples all crowded into this one mess of a chapter that then are threaded through the book and continue to annoy the reader who has even a superficial understanding of the region.
I could list the mistakes - first names confused, patronymic forms completely misunderstood, clear signs the author doesn't know how basic common names sound or are spelled - but the point is not that Pickhart gets these details wrong so much as that she didn't understand how sparse her knowledge was and that she (and her publisher, Two Dollar Radio) had the temerity to publish this without engaging a good proofreader with local knowledge that could help correct such errors. It's frankly appalling and insulting that they did.
And I would be (was, for two hundred pages) willing to forgive these mistakes for the sake of a good novel, but the plot and characters and dialogue are all quite poor, and never go anywhere. I finally realized that the text is formatted in bursts of lines separated by blank spaces because Pickhart can't actually write dialogue; she only seems capable of writing snippets of Powerful, Enigmatic Text.
By the time in the course of the narrative when the Maidan protests themselves have finished, it's become very clear to the reader that Pickhart can't conceive of characters from the region who aren't broken, mournful, dealing with some terrible tragedy as the singular defining feature of how they move through life. (Nor can the author conceive of many realistic situations that her characters might find themselves in. Slava returns to her father in a slovenly *standalone house* in the city of Odesa? Aleksandr's wife picks him up from the train station upon his return from serving in the Soviet army intervention in Prague *in their own personally owned car* in Moscow 1968? Katya makes jam from freshly picked berries by mashing them with a mortar and pestle, not boiling them with sugar, and also somehow eats freshly picked mushrooms *in late March*? People in Kyiv and Donetsk go down to *the corner bar* and order "a drink" or "a vodka" to have a conversation? Really?! All of these are highly improbable, almost laughably so. That poor grasp of the atmospherics reminded me of the terrible novel A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles, whose feel for the place, and particularly the time and politically violent context, was similarly tone deaf -actually, a much better written novel than Pickhart's, but the depiction of the early Soviet and Stalinist purge era in a slapstick mode was what made it disgusting.)
Pickhart does not see the people of Ukraine or of Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union more broadly as fully fledged human beings who can be depicted in a normal mode, simply living everyday, mundane lives. Again, I come back to the idea of respect, or disrespect. It feels like the author loads too much onto her characters. Each of them is colored by some exaggerated tragedy to be pitied, and ultimately that is my takeaway about Pickhart's view (and maybe everyone crowing about the book?) of the people of Ukraine and maybe more generally Eastern Europe: they are only objects for our pity, our condescension. All of the novel's characters have either lost a close loved one in a life-altering tragic situation, been trafficked, suffered the Chernobyl nuclear accident at close range, suffered domestic abuse - and none of them can have a natural conversation or interaction. I'm not trying to belittle those fictional backstories or dispute the idea that in reality many of us - likely more than we know - have been formed by traumatic experiences. I just don't find it realistic or good fiction to weigh the prose depiction of the characters down with their trauma at every moment.
I approached this book with a lot of good will toward the author, but by the end of my reading I feel honestly quite angry - partially at the author, but mainly for those who helped her publish or promoted this book. I have read or listened to enough of Pickhart's commentary about the book to know that she understands some of the ethical considerations involved in writing this book, as an American. I don't fault an American (like me) who seeks to give expression to these experiences, but I do fault a person who doesn't have the requisite knowledge or background for getting in over their head. I don't subscribe to the point of view that experience can't be depicted in fiction by someone who doesn't share the specific identity or lived experience, but I do believe it should not be undertaken lightly or without a great deal of preparation. I think it would be imperative to get help from someone who does actually share the experience or have the full background to get any attempt at this right.
Final nitpick: in the bio at the back of the book, the author says she received a research fellowship from the "U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies" - the bureau is of Intelligence and Research, and I really don't think they award fellowships. She may have received an award to support her research that was funded by the Dept of State, but - again - you lose my respect when you can't even properly cite the organization or mechanism that funded your work.
September 5, 2022
The Ukraine is currently very much in the news. This plus my goal to read as many world books as possible spurred me to read this book NOW.
I knew nothing of the events of 2013 in the Ukraine. My eyes have been opened.
Also, I knew nothing of FEMEN. Once again, eyes are opened.
In this review, I not only intend to describe what was happening in 2013, but also offer some thoughts on how those events relate to current events.
In November 2013, thousands of Ukrainian citizens gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to protest then-President Yanukovych's failure to sign a referendum with the European Union, opting instead to forge a closer alliance with President Vladimir Putin and Russia. The peaceful protests turned violent when military police shot live ammunition into the crowd, killing over a hundred civilians.
Kalani Pickhart chronicles all of this political intrigue, but chooses to place the focus firmly on her characters, ensuring the book never reads like a history lesson. Though they are embroiled in the turmoil caused by the riots, we also see the enduring nature of the characters' more personal hardships. Each of them is struggling with grief in some way: Misha is an engineer mourning the loss of his wife; Katya is a doctor treating the wounded while contemplating her own son's death; Aleksandr, a former KGB agent, is searching for his long-lost daughter; and Slava is a young activist estranged from her parents after a difficult childhood, now forced to hide her blossoming relationship with another woman due to rampant homophobia. While violence rages around them, each is simply fighting for the chance to be with those they love.
FEMEN: Femen (stylized in all caps; Ukrainian: Фемен) is a radical feminist activist group whose goal is to protect women's rights. The organization became internationally known for organizing controversial, topless protests against sex tourism, religious institutions, sexism, homophobia, and other social, national, and international topics. Founded in Ukraine, the group is now based in France. Femen describes its ideology as being "sextremism, atheism and feminism".
Today's Ukrainian war seems to have a sinister purpose to Putin. He once had the Ukraine under his thumb and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has cut off that thumb, hand and all.
5 stars
No 98 in Reading the World Quest. I am anxious to see what will come up as No 100!!!
I knew nothing of the events of 2013 in the Ukraine. My eyes have been opened.
Also, I knew nothing of FEMEN. Once again, eyes are opened.
In this review, I not only intend to describe what was happening in 2013, but also offer some thoughts on how those events relate to current events.
In November 2013, thousands of Ukrainian citizens gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to protest then-President Yanukovych's failure to sign a referendum with the European Union, opting instead to forge a closer alliance with President Vladimir Putin and Russia. The peaceful protests turned violent when military police shot live ammunition into the crowd, killing over a hundred civilians.
Kalani Pickhart chronicles all of this political intrigue, but chooses to place the focus firmly on her characters, ensuring the book never reads like a history lesson. Though they are embroiled in the turmoil caused by the riots, we also see the enduring nature of the characters' more personal hardships. Each of them is struggling with grief in some way: Misha is an engineer mourning the loss of his wife; Katya is a doctor treating the wounded while contemplating her own son's death; Aleksandr, a former KGB agent, is searching for his long-lost daughter; and Slava is a young activist estranged from her parents after a difficult childhood, now forced to hide her blossoming relationship with another woman due to rampant homophobia. While violence rages around them, each is simply fighting for the chance to be with those they love.
FEMEN: Femen (stylized in all caps; Ukrainian: Фемен) is a radical feminist activist group whose goal is to protect women's rights. The organization became internationally known for organizing controversial, topless protests against sex tourism, religious institutions, sexism, homophobia, and other social, national, and international topics. Founded in Ukraine, the group is now based in France. Femen describes its ideology as being "sextremism, atheism and feminism".
Today's Ukrainian war seems to have a sinister purpose to Putin. He once had the Ukraine under his thumb and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has cut off that thumb, hand and all.
5 stars
No 98 in Reading the World Quest. I am anxious to see what will come up as No 100!!!
March 15, 2022
This just was not good. It definitely felt like a novel written by someone accustomed to writing dry policy papers. The prose is stale, the dialogue pretty basic or cliche. All around a disappointment.
September 2, 2023
Historical fiction focused on the Euromaidan protests of 2013-2014 in Ukraine. It is set in Kyiv in the aftermath of then-President Yanukovych’s decision not to join the European Union and strengthening ties to Russia. The narrative follows four characters as they join the protest. The uprising was inflamed by the involvement of the police, which resulted in the deaths of 100+ protesters. This book illuminates the historical importance of Ukraine and the reasons it has been a political target for generations.
The four main characters include two women and two men. Katya is a Ukrainian-American doctor who serves as the outside witness. Her son has died, and her marriage is crumbling, so she travels to Ukraine to employ her medical skills. Slava had previously been a victim of sex trafficking. Her partner (a journalist) has recently disappeared. Alexandr is a former KGB agent wounded while playing piano (as a cultural protest) during the uprising. Misha is an engineer previously involved in Chernobyl. His wife has died from radiation sickness. His mother has returned to her home in spite of the risks. These four end up in the same place, a field hospital in a monastery near the site of the most intense fighting.
The structure of this novel mimics the chaos of the protests. It is told in pieces and parts in a non-linear manner. It is a very ambitious undertaking, and I think could have been pared down to exclude some of the details in the characters’ backstories. This level of detail adds to the depth of the characterizations, but it introduces many complexities in a story that is already multi-faceted. It includes news articles, transcripts of cassette recordings of the former KGB agent, and a chorus of Ukrainian storytellers. While there is definitely a lot going on in this story, I ultimately appreciated it. I would love to get the perspectives of those who live closer to the situation and were/are directly impacted.
The four main characters include two women and two men. Katya is a Ukrainian-American doctor who serves as the outside witness. Her son has died, and her marriage is crumbling, so she travels to Ukraine to employ her medical skills. Slava had previously been a victim of sex trafficking. Her partner (a journalist) has recently disappeared. Alexandr is a former KGB agent wounded while playing piano (as a cultural protest) during the uprising. Misha is an engineer previously involved in Chernobyl. His wife has died from radiation sickness. His mother has returned to her home in spite of the risks. These four end up in the same place, a field hospital in a monastery near the site of the most intense fighting.
The structure of this novel mimics the chaos of the protests. It is told in pieces and parts in a non-linear manner. It is a very ambitious undertaking, and I think could have been pared down to exclude some of the details in the characters’ backstories. This level of detail adds to the depth of the characterizations, but it introduces many complexities in a story that is already multi-faceted. It includes news articles, transcripts of cassette recordings of the former KGB agent, and a chorus of Ukrainian storytellers. While there is definitely a lot going on in this story, I ultimately appreciated it. I would love to get the perspectives of those who live closer to the situation and were/are directly impacted.
May 19, 2022
genuinely feel like someone ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it
March 14, 2022
This debut novel of Pickhart, an American with a passionate interest but no ancestral roots in Ukraine, that takes place during the 2013-14 Ukrainian Revolution amidst a wave of winter protests. Set in Kyiv at the heart of the unrest, the plot alternates the stories of four main characters, Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr. These interwoven narratives that vaguely form its plot are not the centre of attention here. In themselves, they are of moderate interest, but it is what is happening in the background, the actual facts of this period of very recent history, that fascinate. These fragments of press releases, quotations, and even lists of deceased, are blended with Ukranian folklore, and with a highly informative Introduction, make me wonder if the novel would have worked better in a different format.
This sort of fiction, as a pseudo-documentary, is liable to criticism as to which events actually happened, and which are invented. It needs to be made clearer though, that the quoted journalism is genuine, even if it requires a further note in the appendix.
Sadly for Pickhart, her novel has received a huge boost in its promotion following the Russian invasion and the outbreak of war last week.
For those, like me, who want to be better informed about Ukranian history, that box is certainly ticked.
To read this chiefly for the story of the four characters though, that box remains empty.
Here's a clip..
This sort of fiction, as a pseudo-documentary, is liable to criticism as to which events actually happened, and which are invented. It needs to be made clearer though, that the quoted journalism is genuine, even if it requires a further note in the appendix.
Sadly for Pickhart, her novel has received a huge boost in its promotion following the Russian invasion and the outbreak of war last week.
For those, like me, who want to be better informed about Ukranian history, that box is certainly ticked.
To read this chiefly for the story of the four characters though, that box remains empty.
Here's a clip..
Before it was Ukraine, before it was Soviet Union, before it was Russian Empire, before it was Kievan Rus, Crimea was a Khanate - mixed descendants of conquerors and exiles. The people indigenous to the peninsula were called Cumans, and later, Crimean Tatars.
Turkic language, Islamic faith.
In 1932, Stalin starved the Ukrainian.
In 1944, he exiled the Crimean Tatar,.
Ukrainians call it Holdomor: Death by Hunger.
Crimean Tatars call it Surgun, Turkish for expulsion.
Jews call it Shoah, Hebrew for Destruction.
Diaspora, Genocide: two words for saying, Erased.
There is power in a name.
Ukraine means Country.
The Mongols named the peninsula, Crimea.
From Qirim, meaning, Strength.
June 3, 2022
Absolutely relevant to the ongoing war today - in fact, I can't imagine a better fictional way into it. I also felt the disjointedness some other GR reviewers mentioned, but it was slight and served the story perfectly. Interleaving the characters' stories with news items and folklore was the perfect way to provide context without sacrificing pacing. The narrator is very close to, and tender towards, both the main characters and the reader, unfolding their stories in a gradual, nonlinear way that doesn't look away from anything, but somehow supports us through the telling. This feels to me like a book where the author wears her heart on her sleeve and really is the narrator.
March 19, 2022
A beautifully written, yet painfully honest and timely book on Ukraine. The story unfolds with the lives of a set of diverse characters as the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013 - 2014 begins. Their pasts reveal connections to Stalin's purges and starvation of Ukrainian citizens to Chernobyl survivors and those that returned. The passages are interspersed with folktales, verse, and quotes that underline the themes of each.
February 10, 2023
What a journey! Please do read this book. It can be controversial because we are reading about history that is still being written but live the facts on the side and feel the love and the care and fu… fu… pain! Why God?! Just why?!
February 1, 2022
thoughts coming shortly
March 8, 2022
J'ai acheté ce livre il y a quelques semaines, en pensant que je lirais un roman historique. J'avoue que dans les circonstances actuelles, j'ai eu du mal à me convaincre de commencer - lire est une manière de décrocher, alors décrocher de la guerre en lisant ses prémisses, ouf!
'' We sing the story of Kyiv, come ; and you will see ''
Et c'est vrai que partout dans le roman, on retrouve des allusions au fait qu'il pourrait y avoir pire encore que Yanoukovitch, que la victoire du Maidan ne doit pas être prise pour acquise. L'auteure, on va lui accorder ça, a un don de voyance (ou une meilleure connaissance géopolitique de la région que moi, ah!).
Mais la plume est superbe. Vraiment, vraiment superbe. Il y a de tout dans ce livre - des rapports historiques, autant du Maidan que de l'invasion de la Tchécoslovaquie, que de l'incident nucléaire de Chernobyl. Des bribes d'informations disséminées ça et là pour nous rappeler le contexte et ensuite saupoudrées d'histoire romancées, de ces drames humaines, de cette inquiétude qui ronge les Ukrainiens en 2014 et depuis. J'ai aimé aussi l'insertion de folklore ukrainien, cette petites chansons (?) ou poèmes, ou contes ? Le juste mélange pour donner un roman page-turner. On ne peut pas le déposer. On ne peut pas détourner les yeux.
Je vous le conseille, si vous souhaitez mieux comprendre le contexte de la guerre en Ukraine sans tomber dans les essais plus difficiles à lire. Ça donne une base.
''What do we do when the world ends ?
What do we do when the war begins ?
What do we do, buried in a bunker ?
We love. ''
'' We sing the story of Kyiv, come ; and you will see ''
Et c'est vrai que partout dans le roman, on retrouve des allusions au fait qu'il pourrait y avoir pire encore que Yanoukovitch, que la victoire du Maidan ne doit pas être prise pour acquise. L'auteure, on va lui accorder ça, a un don de voyance (ou une meilleure connaissance géopolitique de la région que moi, ah!).
Mais la plume est superbe. Vraiment, vraiment superbe. Il y a de tout dans ce livre - des rapports historiques, autant du Maidan que de l'invasion de la Tchécoslovaquie, que de l'incident nucléaire de Chernobyl. Des bribes d'informations disséminées ça et là pour nous rappeler le contexte et ensuite saupoudrées d'histoire romancées, de ces drames humaines, de cette inquiétude qui ronge les Ukrainiens en 2014 et depuis. J'ai aimé aussi l'insertion de folklore ukrainien, cette petites chansons (?) ou poèmes, ou contes ? Le juste mélange pour donner un roman page-turner. On ne peut pas le déposer. On ne peut pas détourner les yeux.
Je vous le conseille, si vous souhaitez mieux comprendre le contexte de la guerre en Ukraine sans tomber dans les essais plus difficiles à lire. Ça donne une base.
''What do we do when the world ends ?
What do we do when the war begins ?
What do we do, buried in a bunker ?
We love. ''
January 7, 2022
Whew...One heck of a novel. It was a disconcerting pastiche of 4 voices, told in a non linear fashion that is an amalgam of folklore, history, past atrocities, newsprint, singing bards, a listing of passengers killed in the Malaysian flight, tape recordings and the clashes of protestors. All give voice to the turbulent political violence from 2013-2014 in Ukraine where protestors were seeking democracy while the government and police killed and wounded hundreds of demonstrators. Though it is a dark novel told in vignettes, it is profoundly poignant and intensely profound. I must admit I learned a lot of history that I was unaware of. The novel is told through the voices 0f 4 main characters, Katya, Misha, Slava and Aleksander. Each character has been damaged by certain factors, Chernobyl, a storm of invaders, untimely deaths, and broken opportunities. In the backdrop of what is still going on in Ukraine the story becomes even more resonant. Th issues of what it takes to be good-a good citizen, parent, partner, and moral individual are questioned. Though the novel honors those whose lives have been forever altered by these events, it also illuminates their courage in determining to confront despotism.
January 16, 2022
Kalani Pickhart offers glimpses into what it must have been like to experience the 2013-14 Euromaidan conflict in the Ukraine in her debut novel. The novel's structure is a bit like collage--with more traditional narration pieced with songs, folklore, news articles, and audio excerpts. It does evoke the tragedy, perseverance, dignity, horror, and pain that must have accompanied the events, but, for me, that really is not enough. I wanted a stronger storyline, more narrative, more place. I wanted to be there. But, the book kept giving me lyricism, impressions, metaphors. The chapters, at times, read more like prose poetry than fiction. Recommended only for those specifically interested in this historical event or for poets.
August 3, 2022
I really wanted to like this book. But, alas, it was not to be. I found the storytelling fragmented, and none of the characters, except perhaps for Alexandr Ivanovich, really came alive on the page. I would put this book down, and then not really care if I picked it up again. I persevered and finished it accompanied by a sigh of relief that I got through it. Had it been any longer, I would have just given up.
Full disclosure: Grammatical errors annoy me to no end, especially by someone with an MFA in Creative Writing. The last time I checked, "of" is a preposition so the sentence should be "the picture of Anna and me as babies" not "the picture of Anna and I as babies."
Full disclosure: Grammatical errors annoy me to no end, especially by someone with an MFA in Creative Writing. The last time I checked, "of" is a preposition so the sentence should be "the picture of Anna and me as babies" not "the picture of Anna and I as babies."
March 29, 2022
This book is declarative statement after declarative statement. We're told everything in the blandest terms possible, and they happen in succession like a bunch of bullet points. Hard to describe how little emotional draw each character and story has and just how little feeling is imbued into the prose itself.
April 12, 2022
4.5 ⭐️
April 29, 2022
As I write this, we are on the 65th day of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. This book was published in 2021 and only foreshadowed the war that would take place in 2022. Set at the outbreak of the Kyiv protests in 2013, I Will Die in a Foreign Land follows the stories of 4 people as they fare through the transpiring events as their worlds come crashing down. It paints a harrowing and horrifying portrait of what it's like to grow up in the conflict area, deal with the aftermath of surviving Chernobyl, have family fighting on opposing sides of the war, fear sex trafficking and kidnapping from a young age, fight for basic human rights, and more.
This book shed well-deserved light on a severe situation that we shouldn't let drop off our radars just because the world keeps spinning. If there's anything we've learned from the outbreak of COVID-19, it's that we cannot deny our interdependence. We're all connected. It's important to be informed about world events so we can one day help make a difference. Whether it's keeping this topic at the front of people's minds, urging lawmakers to provide support, donating sanitation and emergency kits, helping on the front line, outsourcing business post-war times, there is something we can all do.
Here are some excerpts from this book that will stay with me:
"The war has always been quiet: like a pulse, it can be forgotten. Unnoticed. Like a pulse, we can feel it as long as we’re still here."
“You think it’s treason to speak to the other side? It’s discourse. What do you want? Journalism that caters to your wants, your vision? Do you only want to know that others agree? Then you aren’t looking for democracy. You are looking for another version of extremism. The other side of a flipped coin. Fascism, communism—the bigger evil depends on what you survived. Stalin was both a murderer and a hero. To ignore one reality over the other is dangerous because it is not fully the truth. We tell ourselves what we want to believe—but it is the press that must tell the truth, as ugly as it might be, so that when wars are fought, there is no propaganda. There is no soothsaying. There is only fact. “So yes, I spoke to my friends in Luhansk, and though I disagree with them, I see their side. I share that side with you, so that maybe you will understand. So maybe this revolution will remain against evil, against the abuse of power, and I hope that it will not turn us against one another.”
"When we shoot, we kill a neighbor. When we shoot, we kill ourselves. In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."
"The filmmaker said in a recent press conference, on whether Russia is considering peace with Ukraine: “Even the wolf wearing sheep’s clothing has his teeth sharp. Don’t believe it. I don’t.”
"Mykhailo Hrushevsky, the pre-eminent historian of Ukraine, died in exile in Kislovodsk, Russia. Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet, artist, and activist was buried in St. Petersburg. His friends recovered his body and took his remains by horse and train to a hilltop and reburied him above the River Dnieper. A Heavenly Hundred died in Kyiv. Thirteen thousand from the war in Donetsk. Two hundred and ninety-eight on a crashed Malaysia Airlines flight. A million by Gulag. Ten million by starvation. One hundred twenty thousand murdered Jewish Poles in L’viv. The land, ripe with coal and wheat, is also rich with blood."
This book shed well-deserved light on a severe situation that we shouldn't let drop off our radars just because the world keeps spinning. If there's anything we've learned from the outbreak of COVID-19, it's that we cannot deny our interdependence. We're all connected. It's important to be informed about world events so we can one day help make a difference. Whether it's keeping this topic at the front of people's minds, urging lawmakers to provide support, donating sanitation and emergency kits, helping on the front line, outsourcing business post-war times, there is something we can all do.
Here are some excerpts from this book that will stay with me:
"The war has always been quiet: like a pulse, it can be forgotten. Unnoticed. Like a pulse, we can feel it as long as we’re still here."
“You think it’s treason to speak to the other side? It’s discourse. What do you want? Journalism that caters to your wants, your vision? Do you only want to know that others agree? Then you aren’t looking for democracy. You are looking for another version of extremism. The other side of a flipped coin. Fascism, communism—the bigger evil depends on what you survived. Stalin was both a murderer and a hero. To ignore one reality over the other is dangerous because it is not fully the truth. We tell ourselves what we want to believe—but it is the press that must tell the truth, as ugly as it might be, so that when wars are fought, there is no propaganda. There is no soothsaying. There is only fact. “So yes, I spoke to my friends in Luhansk, and though I disagree with them, I see their side. I share that side with you, so that maybe you will understand. So maybe this revolution will remain against evil, against the abuse of power, and I hope that it will not turn us against one another.”
"When we shoot, we kill a neighbor. When we shoot, we kill ourselves. In Ukraine, the umbilical cord becomes the noose."
"The filmmaker said in a recent press conference, on whether Russia is considering peace with Ukraine: “Even the wolf wearing sheep’s clothing has his teeth sharp. Don’t believe it. I don’t.”
"Mykhailo Hrushevsky, the pre-eminent historian of Ukraine, died in exile in Kislovodsk, Russia. Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet, artist, and activist was buried in St. Petersburg. His friends recovered his body and took his remains by horse and train to a hilltop and reburied him above the River Dnieper. A Heavenly Hundred died in Kyiv. Thirteen thousand from the war in Donetsk. Two hundred and ninety-eight on a crashed Malaysia Airlines flight. A million by Gulag. Ten million by starvation. One hundred twenty thousand murdered Jewish Poles in L’viv. The land, ripe with coal and wheat, is also rich with blood."
March 24, 2024
With what is going on in Ukraine today this is a story that is very relevant. It gives you an overview of the years leading up to today.
The story is told in several timeliness with characters whose lives we follow through the years. There are not any Dick and Janes in this novel so it is sometimes hard to keep your characters straight. However it is well worth the effort.
This book made me so sad. How can people be so cruel. Most of us just want to live our lives in peace and raise our families with love. Why do those so evil always seem to get their way???
The story is told in several timeliness with characters whose lives we follow through the years. There are not any Dick and Janes in this novel so it is sometimes hard to keep your characters straight. However it is well worth the effort.
This book made me so sad. How can people be so cruel. Most of us just want to live our lives in peace and raise our families with love. Why do those so evil always seem to get their way???
September 23, 2022
Wow, what a powerful book!
October 21, 2025
I Will Die in a Foreign Land
Kalani Pickhart
Kalani Pickhart’s I Will Die in a Foreign Land is a layered novel set during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv, where personal histories intersect with political resistance. Its structure combines character-driven narrative with historical documents, news reports, and song fragments, creating a rhythm that balances intimacy with collective memory. The central figures include Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr, each navigating grief, complicity, or longing within a landscape shaped by displacement and historical weight. Pickhart’s prose maintains clarity across shifting timelines and perspectives, allowing the novel to register both emotional and political depth without excess.
An assured debut that balances narrative intimacy with historical depth.
Kalani Pickhart
Kalani Pickhart’s I Will Die in a Foreign Land is a layered novel set during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv, where personal histories intersect with political resistance. Its structure combines character-driven narrative with historical documents, news reports, and song fragments, creating a rhythm that balances intimacy with collective memory. The central figures include Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr, each navigating grief, complicity, or longing within a landscape shaped by displacement and historical weight. Pickhart’s prose maintains clarity across shifting timelines and perspectives, allowing the novel to register both emotional and political depth without excess.
An assured debut that balances narrative intimacy with historical depth.
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