In EarthGods: Writings from before the War, TarasProkhasko invites us into a world where storytelling becomes a form of being. This powerful volume brings together three of his early masterpieces: Anna’s Other Days, FM Galicia, and The UnSimple.
Anna’s Other Days is a quartet of experimental stories that blur the lines between memory and narrative, action and contemplation. Through fragmentary prose and philosophical depth, Prochasko explores in his stories how participation in a narrative, or part of it, captures one’s being.
With FM Galicia, Prokhasko adopts a peculiar form for presenting his writings, which is based on a collaboration between the writer and Ivano-Frankivsk radio station Radio-Vezha (Radio-Tower) for which he did a daily reading of a one- or two-page text he had written. This program resulted in 46 short texts that were published as FM Galicia in 2001 by Lileia-NV. These texts offer personal reflections on topics including, among other things, Prokhasko’s family, his days in the Soviet army, botany, cultural and religious figures, cities, and mountains.
The UnSimple is a novel that tells the story of an insulated community living in the fictional Carpathian mountain resort town of Yalivets in the first half of the twentieth century. It is a place with its own unique, artistic form of democracy, where a special screenwriting institute produces a play written by the people to guide their government’s actions, and many languages are spoken and understood by everyone, and everyone is allowed to speak their own language. In the novel, birth—not death—marks the end of a story.
For lovers of literary experimentation, Ukrainian culture, and philosophical prose, Earth Gods will be a true revelation!
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