Journal d’un fou ukrainien

Journal d’un fou ukrainien, a novel by Lina Kostenko, published by L’Harmattan, in the “Présence Ukrainienne” series. Translated from Ukrainian by Nikol Dziub and Sonia Philonenko. Foreword by Radomyr Mokryk.

This novel takes the form of the diary of a thirty-year-old Kyiv-based programmer who painfully reflects on the globalization of misinformation and the virtualization of emotions at the turn of the millennium. Born in 1968, the year of the Soviet invasion of Prague, the often powerless protagonist describes the crescendo of catastrophes that marked the years 1999 to 2004.

More than a chronicle, this novel is a warning: the tragic events of recent years in Ukraine are foreshadowed within its pages. Above all, it is a work of struggle, as the protagonist attempts to bridge the ever-widening gap between men and women, between yesterday’s and today’s generations, and between Europe and an Ukraine turned into a battleground for antagonistic worlds.

These annals of ordinary madness and the extraordinary courage of Ukrainian citizens conclude with an evocation of the famous Orange Revolution, a true Day of Wrath from which Ukrainian civil society emerged.

Editor’s website