Publication Date: Marcy 7, 2023
Print Length: 128 pages
Previous Author Publications: Lucky Breaks (2022)
SYNOPSIS
For the first forty-one days after the Russians invaded Ukraine, Yevgenia Belorusets, a Ukrainian journalist and photographer, kept a diary to capture how life changed in her hometown of Kyiv. Her daily accounts, which were published in the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, described how everyday Ukrainians struggled to survive in the face of the unrelenting Russian bombing attacks.
Disbelieving, angry, grief-stricken, and helpless, Belorusets describes the destruction around her, as she struggles to create a record of how Ukrainians dealt with an overwhelming sense of having been abandoned, as the city around them is destroyed.
REVIEWS AND AUTHOR INFORMATION
Garner, Dwight, “When war came to Ukraine, she took up a diary and a camera.” The New York Times, March 6, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/books/yevgenia-belorusets-war-diary.html..
Domini, “Yevgenia Belorusets’s War Diary.” The Brooklyn Rail, February 2023. https://brooklynrail.org/2023/02/books/War-Diary.
Ajayi, Angela, “Review: ‘War Diary,’ by Yevegnia Belourusets, translated from German by Greg Nissan.” Star Tribune. March 3, 2023. https://www.startribune.com/review-war-diary-by-yevgenia-belorusets-translated-from-german-by-greg-nissan/600255936/.
Limbong, Andrew, “In Ukraine, Writer-Photographer Yevengia Belorusets documents Kyiv’s displaced.” NPR, March 16, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/16/1086844478/in-ukraine-writer-photographer-yevgenia-belorusets-documents-kyivs-displaced.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Faced with an ongoing threat from Russian bombardments, what are the day-to-day decisions the citizens of Kyiv must make to survive?
What final considerations convince the residents of Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine that it is time to leave their homes?
How does the sense of time and place become distorted as Ukrainians face their day-to-day struggle to survive while the city around them is destroyed?
From the perspective of ordinary citizens what can be the justification for a war that causes so much destruction and suffering?
