{"title":"Olena Stiazhkina","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ukraine-war-love-book-olena-stiazhkina-9780674291706","title":"Ukraine, War, Love","description":"In Ukraine, War, Love, Olena Stiazhkina depicts day-to-day developments in and around her beloved hometown Donetsk during Russia’s 2014 invasion and occupation of the Ukrainian city. An award-winning fiction writer, Stiazhkina chronicles an increasingly harrowing series of events with sarcasm, anger, humor, and love.  The diary opens on March 2, 2014, as the first wave of pro-Russian protest washes over eastern Ukraine in the wake of Euromaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, and it closes on August 18, 2014, the day a convoy of civilian Ukrainian refugees is deliberately slaughtered by Russian forces. Early on, Stiazhkina is captured by pro-Russian forces while she browses for books but is freed when one of her captors turns out to be a former student. Vignettes from her personal life intermingle with current events, and she examines ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. We walk with local dogs and their owners; we meet a formidable apartment building manager who shames occupiers and dismantles their artillery from the roof of her building; we follow a family evacuated to Kyiv whose young son builds checkpoints out of Legos. Olena Stiazhkina’s Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary is a fierce love letter to her country, her city, and her people.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50068238565649,"sku":"NGR9780674291706","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005456843025,"sku":"NIN9780674291706","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53605732090129,"sku":"CIN0674291700G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674291700.jpg?v=1777629022"},{"product_id":"ukraine-war-love-book-olena-stiazhkina-9780674291690","title":"Ukraine, War, Love","description":"In Ukraine, War, Love, Olena Stiazhkina depicts day-to-day developments in and around her beloved hometown Donetsk during Russia’s 2014 invasion and occupation of the Ukrainian city. An award-winning fiction writer, Stiazhkina chronicles an increasingly harrowing series of events with sarcasm, anger, humor, and love.  The diary opens on March 2, 2014, as the first wave of pro-Russian protest washes over eastern Ukraine in the wake of Euromaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, and it closes on August 18, 2014, the day a convoy of civilian Ukrainian refugees is deliberately slaughtered by Russian forces. Early on, Stiazhkina is captured by pro-Russian forces while she browses for books but is freed when one of her captors turns out to be a former student. Vignettes from her personal life intermingle with current events, and she examines ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. We walk with local dogs and their owners; we meet a formidable apartment building manager who shames occupiers and dismantles their artillery from the roof of her building; we follow a family evacuated to Kyiv whose young son builds checkpoints out of Legos. Olena Stiazhkina’s Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary is a fierce love letter to her country, her city, and her people.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50119830765841,"sku":"NGR9780674291690","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674291697.jpg?v=1777630598"},{"product_id":"cecil-the-lion-had-to-die-book-olena-stiazhkina-9780674291669","title":"Cecil the Lion Had to Die","description":"In 1986 Soviet Ukraine, two boys and two girls are welcomed into the world in a Donetsk maternity ward. Following a Soviet tradition of naming things after prominent Communist leaders from far away, a local party functionary offers great material benefits for naming children after Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the German Communist Party from 1925 to 1933. The fateful decision is made, and the local newspaper presents the newly born Ernsts and Thälmas in a photo on the front page, forever tying four families together.  In Cecil the Lion Had to Die, Olena Stiazhkina follows these families through radical transformations when the Soviet Union unexpectedly implodes, independent Ukraine emerges, and neoimperial Russia occupies Ukraine’s Crimea and parts of the Donbas. Just as Stiazhkina’s decision to transition to writing in Ukrainian as part of her civic stance—performed in this book that begins in Russian and ends in Ukrainian—the stark choices of family members take them in different directions, presenting a multifaceted and nuanced Donbas.  A tour de force of stylistic registers, intertwining stories, and ironic voices, this novel is a must-read for those who seek deeper understanding of how Ukrainian history and local identity shapes war with Russia.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50509619527953,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50509619593489,"sku":"NGR9780674291669","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52127110299921,"sku":"GOR014493901","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52599324410129,"sku":"CIN0674291662G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674291662.jpg?v=1777630577"},{"product_id":"zero-point-ukraine-book-olena-stiazhkina-9783838215501","title":"Zero Point Ukraine","description":"The Western understanding of what happened in Ukraine during World War II has been shaped by historical and ideological constructs created in the Kremlin. The Ukrainian specificity has been dissolved in the concept of the \"great victorious Russian people\" and distorted by attempts to equate Ukrainian nationalists to German Nazis, while the occupation and colonization of Ukraine by Russian Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s has widely been ignored or artificially silenced.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In her Four Essays on World War II, Olena Stiazhkina inscribes the Ukrainian history of the war into a wider European and world context.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The Soviet and contemporary Russian narratives about World War II have been used to justify the Kremlin's policies towards democratic countries. Today, Russia re-mains deeply engaged in the falsification of the past, which underpins the claims of the so-called \"Russian World\" and the ongoing war against Ukraine.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Olena Stiazhkina's book promotes a new, historically adequate understanding of what happened in Ukraine before, during, and after World War II.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50575986786577,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50575987605777,"sku":"NGR9783838215501","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53657311248657,"sku":"NLS9783838215501","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/3838215508.jpg?v=1750837993"},{"product_id":"cecil-the-lion-had-to-die-book-olena-stiazhkina-9780674291645","title":"Cecil the Lion Had to Die","description":"In Cecil the Lion Had to Die, Olena Stiazhkina follows four families through radical transformations when the Soviet Union implodes, independent Ukraine emerges, and Russia occupies Ukraines Crimea and parts of the Donbas. A must-read novel for those seeking deeper understanding of how Ukrainian history and local identity shapes war with Russia.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51597551010065,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51597551272209,"sku":"NGR9780674291645","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52318069621009,"sku":"GOR014503617","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674291646.jpg?v=1777630018"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-olena-stiazhkina.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}