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.”

Khrystia Vengryniuk’s Long Eyes is a collection of poems that guides us through the labyrinths of loneliness, where pain drifts like the wind and voices fade yet still echo on the edges of silence. It is both a confession that pours forth like rain from the heavens and a lingering hallucination that refuses to release its grip upon having subsided. Though these poems mark some of the author’s earliest work, their impact remains undiminished, speaking uncompromisingly to the madness of our current world. Volume 18 in the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series. Bilingual Edition.

This book examines Russian and Ukrainian feature films to trace the roots and consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It argues that the cultural war stems from a colonial past, where Russia viewed Ukraine as an inferior “little brother.”

By examining cinematic representations of the countries’ shared history, this book reveals how Russia has used cinema to promote a strong, unified state and patriotic narratives, while Ukrainian cinema seeks to overcome colonial trauma and build a distinct national identity.

It also investigates how cultural memories of Kyivan Rus, the Cossacks, World War II, the Soviet past, and the Russian war in Ukraine are depicted differently in Russian and Ukrainian cinema.

How would you communicate the realities of living in a warzone to someone who has never had this experience? Thirty Ukrainian women, ages 10 to 72, answered this question in letters that emanate power, depth, pain, strength, and resilience. These fragments of life reveal the horrors of conflict but also the humanity of survivors.

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!

Crimean Fig / Qirim Inciri: Contemporary Crimean Tatar Poetry and Fiction features stories and poems, written by contemporary Crimea Tatar writers and poets, which are shadowed by history. Inevitably, they reflect the traumas endured by Crimean Tatars over the last three and a half centuries. They further chronicle the complex process of a population’s efforts at reintegration into an ancestral land from which they’d been exiled over more than half a century. One hears, in both the stories and poems, a cultural and national pride, love for a land of stunning natural beauty, and a longing for the stability of peace.