the orphanage (serhiy zhadan, tr. reilly costigan-humes & isaac stackhouse wheeler)

Serhily Zhadan is a cult writer of novels and poetry from Kharkiv, a city I had never heard of a month ago, but one which has now joined the list of names that will forever be associated with the evils of war.

The Orphanage was published in 2017. It should be compulsory reading for two reasons. Firstly because, if you want an idea of what it is like to exist in Ukraine right now, this book gives you that. The Orphanage is set across three days of war. The down-at-heel Pasha is someone who ignores the news and doesn’t realise that conflict is about to break out once more in his Eastern corner of the Ukraine. When he finds out how bad things have got, he sets out to bring his nephew, Sasha, back from the orphanage he has been put in by his Pasha’s sister, who works as a stewardess on the long distance train to Kyiv. Pasha gets on the bus which doesn’t get far and then begins a journey into hell. The novel traces his movements across a battle scarred terrain. Death is always one step ahead or one step behind. He befriends people and then fears that the building they were sheltering in has been shelled after he’s left them. Life is transitory and endlessly, exhaustingly terrifying. Three days is a chaotic lifetime where nothing matters except getting through the next hour alive. In some ways the novel is reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, except that the tone is more deadpan and mordant. There is no real sign of poetic redemption to be gleaned from the mess of the world that the conflict is creating.

The second reason has to do with the date of publication. The Orphanage is five years old. I remember watching Bartas’ Frost in 2017, a film which revealed the extent of the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine. What is occurring now is not new or unforeseen. This conflict has been armed and dangerous for many years. Which suggests that the fact it has escalated should not come as such a surprise, and also make one question the statescraft or lack of it that has failed to build in measures to prevent the escalation. Looking back now, Zhadan’s novel was a clear warning of what was happening and what might go on to happen. It has become a prophetic work, one whose prophesy has been ignored to everyone’s cost.