Sasha Dovzhyk

This is a collection of creative nonfiction essays in which the reality of the full-scale Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s aggression meets stories drawn from rich literary and folk traditions feeding the country’s will to fight. Split between more conventional forms of reportage and stories from the ground stylized as modern fairy tales, the book is based on testimonies gathered by the author in Ukraine in 2022–23, where she has worked with foreign journalists and local teams documenting Russia’s war crimes. Contributing to the new genre-bending writing emerging from Ukraine in response to the war (such as Olesya Khromeychuk’s The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister, Oleksandr Mykhed’s Cat, Rooster, Sideboard), the book follows a Ukrainian Little Red Riding Hood into the woods of Bucha and the iconic character of Lesia Ukrainka’s Mavka into the bombed library of Sloviansk. Combining the art of storytelling with cultural history, the collection presents a lasting record of Ukrainian resistance viewed through the lens of feminist and anti-imperialist mythmaking.

This fellowship is generously funded by the City of Vienna.