Lucky Breaks
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Captivating, innovative Ukrainian fiction about displaced women living in the shadow of the war with Russia
'This singular collection brings Ukraine, "the land of residual phenomena," entirely to life' Kirkus Reviews
In Lucky Breaks, we encounter anonymous women from the margins of Ukrainian society, their lives upended by the ongoing conflict with Russia. A woman, bewildered by her broken umbrella, tries to abandon it like a sick relative; a beautiful florist suddenly disappears, her shop converted into a warehouse for propaganda; hiding out from the shelling, neighbours read horoscopes in the local paper that tell them when it's safe for them to go outside.
In stories of linguistic verve and absurdist wit, Yevgenia Belorusets writes of trauma amidst the mundane, telling surreal, unsettling tales of survival in a shattered country.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Belorusets, a documentary photographer and activist, captures the extraordinary lives of ordinary Ukrainian women in her arresting fiction debut, a story collection. The brief entries survey lives upended by the political and military turmoil over the past two decades: "that's the kind of country we have, okay? The unprotected kind," recounts the eponymous narrator of the excellent "Lena in Danger," about a woman who leaves Ukraine for Germany in the 2000s. Some have a magical or fantastical element, such as "The Woman Who Caught Babies into a Mitt," in which a powerful witch places curses on whole buildings. As the war in the Donetsk region begins in 2014, many of the women disappear—in "The Florist," a woman spends all her time in her flower shop ("it was only inside her store," the narrator says of her, "that she knew how to exist"), until she and the shop disappear. In "A Woman at the Cosmetologist's," another woman finds comfort visiting her cosmetologist, who gives massages and fulfills the role of a therapist. As suicide rates increase, the characters' despair becomes palpable in a series of standout stories, namely "The Stars" and "The Crash." Two of Belorusets's photo series supplement her writing, but her words speak for themselves. The combination makes for a powerful exercise.
