Arabesques

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The women, men, and children in Serhiy Zhadan's collection of stories testify to the dignity of daily life in the war-battered Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Through a series of powerf ul vignettes we witness the ordinary experiences of people in extraordinary times - weddings, love affairs, tense visits home from the battlefield, desperate deliveries of humanitarian aid. Highlighting the upheaval since the 2022 Russian invasion, characters from Zhadan's 'Mesopotamia' and 'The Orphanage' reappear, this time with entirely different concerns: evacuating an elderly woman after the bombardment of a residential area; finding a job for someone who returned from the front with significant disabilities; attending the funeral of a colleague who had led a combat unit on the front lines. Show more