Around the War in 20 Stories: Ukrainian tales of hope, humanity and humour collected by Anna Shevchenko

Tuesday 25 June, Zoom, 7pm
Tickets: £6/£4
(All profits donated to Ukrainian charitable projects)

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‘These stories are beautifully written and give a stunning and poignant sense of the state of play.’

Alec Russell, Foreign Editor, Financial Times

 

How do ordinary people get on with their daily lives when war is all around them? What do they laugh about, and where do they find the strength to work, love and carry on? Ranging from profoundly moving to darkly funny and downright surreal, these true tales of Ukrainian life in the time of war will leave no one indifferent.

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This book belongs to so many people – to those who trusted Anna with their stories; to the team at the printers who printed it under shelling; to the designer whose  windows were blown out by an explosion while she was designing the cover.

The money from book sales was intended to go to the people featured in the book, but they all declined and instead decided to donate to selected charities: to fund anti-mining equipment for farmers, buy medicine for the children's hospital in Lviv, deliver tactical medicine to the front line, and to support a children's library in Kherson and a dog shelter in Irpin. Profits from this event will be donated to Ukrainian charitable projects.

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About Anna Shevchenko

Anna Shevchenko is a British-Ukrainian writer and a compulsive storyteller. Her novel Bequest  was nominated for a George Orwell Prize in the UK, selected in the top forty summer reads list in the Independent and shortlisted for two prizes at the European Literature Salon in France. The Game was a Book of the Month in France, the choice of Belgian booksellers as a Book of the Year and was one of the top five Foreign Books of the Year in Ukraine.

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Anna is also the author of Culture Smart! Ukraine, a guide to Ukrainian culture, currently on its second edition. Her articles have appeared in various publications, including The Times, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph.

She collected the stories for this book working across Europe and in Ukraine in 2022-23.

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More about Anna and the project: