| Description |
265 pages ; 21 cm |
| Original Version |
Originally published: Chernivtsi, Ukraine : Books XXI, 2018 in Ukrainian as The Ukraine. |
| Contents |
A million stories : preface to the English edition, March 2022 -- Pan Ivan and the three bears -- Sonny, please . . . -- Rymma Hryhorivna is craving human contact -- The first -- I'm sorry that it isn't more -- The exploitative realtor -- This is my home! -- Feel unique -- One soul per home -- Just don't laugh -- The gracious spirit of the provincial north -- The bazaar never sleeps -- Just pay your taxes -- A fancy send-off -- The two Antons -- Faulty presuppositions -- Rehabilitation -- Take care of yourself, Bratishka -- Did you fall off the moon, or what? -- An average schmuck -- My daughter still doesn't understand -- The apolitical wunderkind -- Marmalade -- Freedom for Papua! -- The Ukraine. |
| Summary |
"The Ukraine is a collection of 26 pieces that deliberately blur the line between nonfiction and fiction, conjuring the essence of a beloved country through its tastes, smells, and sounds, its small towns and big cities, its people and their compassion and indifference, simplicities and complications. In the title story, Chapeye facetiously plays with the English misuse of the article 'the' in reference to Ukraine, capturing a country as perceived from the outside, by foreigners. That pseudo-kitsch, often historically shallow, and not-quite-real Ukraine resonates because of its highly engaging and brutally candid snapshots of ordinary lives and typical places. In 'One Soul per Home' an elderly woman laments that the men are dying and the young are leaving for the cities, changing the face of her small town. In 'The Unscrupulous Spirit of the Provinces,' a couple of unspecified gender get stoned and go to church, and in 'False Premises,' a man romanticizes his younger years working for a Soviet fishing fleet only to reconstruct his nostalgia in the face of Putin's Russia. The Ukraine conveys to readers a place that Chapeye and his countrymen are currently fighting for with their lives." --publisher's website |
| Subject |
National characteristics, Ukrainian.
|
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Ukraine -- Social life and customs.
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Ukraine -- Social conditions.
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Essays.
|
| Genre |
Short stories.
|
| Added Author |
Tompkins, Zenia, translator.
|
| ISBN |
9781644212950 (pbk.) |
|
1644212951 (pbk.) |
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