Book 2022

Lucky Breaks UA

Lucky Breaks
Yevgenia Belorusets
Lucky Breaks Lucky Breaks

 

Information
Realm
Ukrainian
Author
Yevgenia Belorusets
Title
Lucky Breaks
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
New Directions
Date of Publication
2022
Illustrations
Yes
Material Type
Book
Format
Paperback
Number of Pages
109
OCLC Number
1280406440
ISBN
9780811229845
Language
English
Genre
Short Stories
Translator
Eugene Ostashevsky

Yevgenia Belorusets. Lucky Breaks. Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky. New York: New Directions, 2022

Description

Out of the impoverished Ukrainian coal regions known as the Donbass, where Russian secret military intervention mixes with banditry and insurgency, the women of Yevgenia Belorusets’s captivating collection of stories Lucky Breaks emerge from the ruins of an ongoing war. Through a series of unexpected encounters, we are pulled into the ordinary lives of these anonymous women: a florist, a cosmetologist, readers of horoscopes, the unemployed, cardplayers, a witch who catches newborns with a mitt. One refugee tries unsuccessfully to leave her broken umbrella behind as if it were a sick relative; another sits down on International Women’s Day and can no longer stand up. With a mix of humor, verisimilitude, the undramatic, and a profound irony reminiscent of Gogol, Belorusets threads these tales of ebullient survival with twenty-three photographs that form a narrative in lyrical and historical counterpoint.

Out of the impoverished Ukrainian coal regions known as the Donbass, where Russian secret military intervention mixes with banditry and insurgency, the women of Yevgenia Belorusets’s captivating collection of stories Lucky Breaks emerge from the ruins of an ongoing war. Through a series of unexpected encounters, we are pulled into the ordinary lives of these anonymous women: a florist, a cosmetologist, readers of horoscopes, the unemployed, cardplayers, a witch who catches newborns with a mitt. One refugee tries unsuccessfully to leave her broken umbrella behind as if it were a sick relative; another sits down on International Women’s Day and can no longer stand up. With a mix of humor, verisimilitude, the undramatic, and a profound irony reminiscent of Gogol, Belorusets threads these tales of ebullient survival with twenty-three photographs that form a narrative in lyrical and historical counterpoint.

Reviews 1
Lucky Breaks
Eugene Ostashevsky
Review 2022
Eugene Ostashevsky on "Lucky Breaks" by Yevgenia Belorusets
Eugene Ostashevsky