The first books of the joint project/series “Words of Ukraine” by Freedom Letters (UK) and Oleg Fedorov’s Printing House (Ukraine, Kyiv) have been just published. The books are printed in Kyiv, in Ukrainian.
By the word, the first three books of the project are books by Henry Lion Oldie and Oleg Ladyzhenskij “solo” written during the full-scale Russia’s invasion into Ukraine: documentary prose (diaries), fiction, and poetry by Oleg Ladyzhenskij. Namely (with links to where these books can be purchased):
“The Door into Winter” by H. L. Oldie:
This collection includes new short stories and a short novelette from 2022-23 by Dmytro Gromov and Oleh Ladyzhenskij writing under the joint pen-name of “Henry Lyon Oldie.”
These are stories from the time of the full-scale war that Russia started against Ukraine. In these stories, the reality of everyday life in war is intertwined with mysticism and fantasy, human tragedy with hope, and cruel and extreme trials with humanity and compassion. The heroes of Oldie’s stories are mostly ordinary people like you and me. Old and young, civilian and military, living and dead – Ukrainians who have been destined to live in our harsh times. But each of them has their own inner core, and each of them somehow finds the strength to resist the aggression, evil and despair that has hit Ukraine.
“Invasion” by H. L. Oldie:
Dmytro Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhenskij had never written documentary prose before, only fiction. They had never kept diaries. But the invasion of Ukraine changed everything. These diaries are not the fiction that Oldie is used to. Different language, different style, according to the circumstances. These notes were written in cities under fire, in basements and bomb shelters, on evacuation trains and buses, in rented apartments during short pauses of “volunteer fever,” between calls to friends and family members.
“Ballad of the Soldiers” by Oleg Ladyzhenskij:
The ballad genre is lyrical and epic. It combines the incongruous: an objective narrative and a subjective view from the inside. In fact, this is what we are trying to do now, having found ourselves in conditions that we thought were impossible. “If only there was no war,” we said for many years, with the implication that of course there won’t be, because there can never be a war. But there is a war. And now we have to re-cognize everything: God, the world, people, ourselves. To look from the inside and outside. This painful comprehension is what Ladyzhenskij’s poems are about.