Thread by @BlackerUilleam

Anyone who wants to understand what Russia has put Ukraine through over the last 8 years should read the new Ukrainian war literature. Some excellent works are available in English. Here are a few authors worth reading. 🧵 1/

Volodymyr Rafeyenko's story ‘7 Dillweeds’ transl. Marci Shore, explores the grotesque absurdity of the war: eurozine.com/seven-dillweed… He switched from Rus to Ukr in his novel Mondegreen (transl Mark Andryczyk), about internal exile/language/identity: books.huri.harvard.edu/books/rafeyenk… 2/

Olena Stiazhkina is also from Donetsk. Her In God’s Language is a powerful novella about occupied Donetsk (my translation for @apofenie, originally @Dalkey_Archive, of an excerpt👇). She has several works on the war already bit.ly/34DOPZr 3/

The anthology Words for War, ed. Oksana Maksymchuk & Max Rosochinsky, collects a range of contemporary poets in excellent translations (some also appeared in @MPTmagazine). My translations of Vasyl Makhno's work are here @ASP_Boston academicstudiespress.com/ukrainianstudi… 4/

Natalia Vorozhbyt’s play Bad Roads was brilliantly transl. by @SashaDugdale & staged at @royalcourt Theatre, which also published the play. It’s now a major film. A fragmented, disturbing, powerful exploration of life on the frontline. royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bad-r… 5/

Artem Chekh’s Absolute Zero, transl. @OlenaJennings & Oksana Lutsyshyna, is one of the best of many soldiers’ memoirs published since 2014. A sensitive account that avoids macho heroics and reflects the banality of war. See @_jamesmeek's review in @LRB lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/… 6/

@OKhromeychuk's memoir of losing her brother in the war is another that challenges militarisation and explores the civilian side of war with sensitivity and sharp analysis (written originally in English). @ibidem11 bit.ly/3oVb2ci Excerpt here bit.ly/3uVeIOL 7/

Stanislav Aseyev has written searing accounts of time spent in ‘separatist’ prisons in Donbas. See In Isolation, trans. Lidia Wolanskyj @HURI_Harvard books.huri.harvard.edu/books/in-isola…, & an excerpt from another book here bit.ly/3LwG5EO transl. by Nina Murray & @TsurkanKate 8/

Serhii Zhadan’s Orphanage, tr. Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler, is one of the best novels about the current war - a tense odyssey through a collapsing, occupied city. @YaleBooks yalebooks.yale.edu/book/978030024… 9/

@AKurkov’s Grey Bees, transl. @BorisDralyuk, is a brilliant, nuanced journey through the ‘grey zones’ of the war. Amid the black and white propaganda, he shows the uncertainty, confusion and ambiguities of life in this landscape. I reviewed it in @TheTLS bit.ly/3sHNJDW

I’ve been writing about Ukrainian literature for 15+ years. It's full of surprises, but I never expected to be writing about war literature. I wish it hadn't had to appear, but it represents one of the most important developments in recent European literature. Read it! (end)