This collection of poems transforms the personal author’s loss into Ukraine’s collective experience. Since the outbreak of war in Donetsk in 2014, Iya Kiva has become an essential voice for the country’s internally displaced people, creating new metaphors for uncertainty and survival.

Originally writing in Russian, Kiva now writes in Ukrainian, reflecting her linguistic shift and her layered Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish heritage. Her work confronts the trauma of war while offering lyrical expressions of resilience, love, and hope for a united Ukraine.

A remarkable two-book volume: Diary of A Hunger Striker, the first-hand account of celebrated Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, jailed unfairly as a political prisoner, during his 145-day-long hunger strike in a Russian prison; and Four and a Half Steps, his newest collection of short stories. Sentsov’s prison diary begins three days into his indefinite hunger strike, as he calls for the release of all political prisoners in Russia. Frank, sharp, and detailed, the diary recounts day after day of observations and thoughts about his daily life, from interactions with guards, police officers, good and bad, to his thoughts on fellow writers and the world outside his cell.

Best Literary Translations redefines the canon of global literatures in English translation, showcasing the brave and brilliant work of contemporary translators and editors.

This book explores transitional post-Soviet cultural consciousness in Ukraine at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The main themes in the book are postcolonial traumas in relation to past empires and old historiographical narratives; post-totalitarian consciousness, which is characterized by sociocultural ruptures, postcolonial resentment, and intergenerational crises; and post-memory as a means of overcoming historical and familial traumas. Against the backdrop of the Chornobyl catastrophe, the book examines the meeting of different generations and views the clown Verka Serduchka as a mediator between the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet world. 

The book focuses on three significant Ukrainian novels written between the two Maidans: The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko (2009), Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan (2010), and Notes of a Ukrainian Madman by Lina Kostenko (2010).

Set during the early days of Russia’s 2022 invasion, Rafeyenko’s play explores survival, identity, and connection in a community trapped between Bucha and Borodianka.

With echoes of Ukrainian and global literary voices, Signals of Being is a dramatic meditation on war and belonging.

A gripping, unexpectedly humorous, and deeply human portrait of life in Ukraine reshaped by war. In this powerful collection of essays, writer Andriy Lyubka—thrust into the role of an unlikely volunteer—offers a firsthand account of delivering aid to the front lines.

With raw honesty and surprising wit, Lyubka captures both the absurdity and the heartbreak of war. He reflects on time lost, the emotional toll of conflict, and the everyday defiance that keeps hope alive. From the logistical nightmares of aid distribution to the rich aroma of coffee that briefly restores a soldier’s sense of normalcy, War from the Rear reveals a side of war rarely seen—the human side.

More than just a chronicle of conflict, this book is a tribute to the individuals who endure it, the bonds they build, and the acts of kindness that shine through even the darkest times. It’s an essential, unforgettable perspective on Ukraine’s ongoing fight that will stay with readers long after the final page.

Alluding to the Indigenous Australian concept of dreamtime, the novel offers a unique point of view on the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, through four intertwining narratives: a guilt-ridden doctor trying to exorcise his demons by exposing himself to war; a young woman tending to her ailing father as the bombs fall around them in Russian-occupied Slovyansk; a mysterious sociopath playing a cat-and-mouse game with an ex-lover; and a forensic expert solving a murder case while trying to save her marriage with a discharged soldier. As these threads unfurl, through harrowing scenes of personal and collective trauma, an enigmatic pattern emerges. The plots span in space from Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas to southern Europe and southeast Asia, tied together by themes of existential conflict and the blurred line between reality and dreams.

The novel was first published in Kyiv in 2020 as the focal point for a video-art exhibition on the media’s role in creating public collective experiences. It was well received by critics and audiences and praised for its realism in depicting war, for its creative literary depiction of how dreams reflect the psyche, and for its masterly prose.

This book brings Shums’kyi’s legacy out of the shadows into the light of today’s struggle and provides a new perspective on the causes of Soviet repression and Russian pathologies regarding Ukrainian independence, helping us to understand Russia’s current war against Ukraine. It reveals a tragic, complex figure who fought for Ukraine from within the Soviet system.

Oleksandr Shums’kyi, a Marxist and staunch opponent of the imperialist notion of Ukraine as “Little Russia,” believed in an equal, sovereign, and socialist Ukraine, not a subordinate appendage of the Russian Empire.

Despite torture, paralysis, and the murder of his wife, Shums’kyi never confessed to Stalin’s fabricated crimes, sustaining for over a decade a massive protest against his repression and the Stalinist attack on Ukraine. He died for the idea of a free Ukraine, refusing to surrender his dignity or his homeland.

His refusal to surrender, a sense of dignity, and a love for his homeland—echoes in Ukraine’s battle today.

The realism and mastery of the word in this novel immerses the reader in the story of Stepan Radchenko, a young man from the provinces, who moves to Kyiv and achieves literary success through romantic encounters with women. Pidmogylnyi’s prose reveals the main protagonist’s psyche through action rather than introspection, and combines French literary influence with Freudian depth and existential uncertainty.

Set in Kyiv—a city central to Ukrainian identity—The City reflects the tensions of Ukrainization, Soviet bureaucracy, and the chaotic brilliance of 1920s literary life. It’s a novel about ambition, alienation, and the unpredictable paths of human desire.

Henry Hughes’ fifth book of poems, Sergeant Dark, carries us to the edge of the war in Ukraine and deep into Antarctica. These poems take us out shark fishing and bird watching, and into the bar and bedroom. They offer honest, humorous and hard looks at everyday life—love, marriage, parenting, money, religion, sports and politics—celebrating the joys and admitting the failures. “Hughes’ poems are conscious of the destruction and ‘heady wastes’ we humans make,” writes Annie Lighthart, but “they will not let go of the truth at the other end of the line—that the world is still vividly living and vividly loved.”