Carbide

Translators Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
Editor Michael Tate

CARBIDE explores the underbelly of the Ukrainian smuggling industry. The protagonist, Tys, a merciless yet loving parody of Ukrainian nationalism, concocts a hairbrained scheme to dig a tunnel from the imaginary western Ukrainian city of Vedmediv to Hungary and force the European Union to grant Ukraine admission by smuggling its entire population into a member-country. Hilarity inevitably ensues, along with danger, when Tys, the would-be ‘Moses of Ukraine’, recruits a gang of local smugglers, including a latter-day Icarus determined to fly over the border and a femme fatale who traffics human organs. This timely novel offers a funny, yet tragic take on increasingly urgent topics such as the meaning of borders, nationalism, and European identity.