Take My Grief Away: Voices from the War in Ukraine

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING

In the darkest of times, in the midst of it all, a journalist has one single task: to document everything that is happening. It is time to slow down and listen to the voice of a human being.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since that day, prize-winning independent journalist Katerina Gordeeva has travelled to refugee centres across Europe to record the human voice and cost of war. Take My Grief Away reveals twenty-four raw, heartbreaking first-person accounts from people united in grief and their first-hand experiences of the brutality and senselessness of war. These twenty-four voices will transform what you think you know about war, grief and human nature.

About the Author

Katerina Gordeeva is an award-winning Russian independent journalist. Until 2012, she worked as a TV reporter for the federal television channel NTV. She resigned from the channel due to a disagreement with the channel's programming agenda. Katerina left Moscow out of protest in 2014, after Russia's annexation of Crimea and seizure of part of Eastern Ukraine. Gordeeva was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya International Journalism Prize in August in 2022.

About the Translator

Lisa C. Hayden translates Russian literature, primarily contemporary novels, into English. Hayden founded a literary blog, Lizok's Bookshelf, in 2007 to discuss Russian books and literary news. She writes occasional book reports for publishers and essays on translation for Web sites and magazines. 

Reviews

"Someday people will learn history by reading Katerina Gordeeva's books. Not the history of war, but rather the history of people at war. How fragile a human being is, how shamefully and frighteningly fragile. Read this book. Don't put it off until you'll supposedly be strong enough and ready for the reading. If you put it off, you'll find yourself defenseless in the face of evil. ―Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Chernobyl Prayer

"Since the onset of the war in Ukraine, Katerina Gordeeva has become a one-person alternative to a huge government propaganda machine [in Russia]. The storylines and people collected in this book are staggering. Tragedies, the journey of the Ukrainian people from incomprehension to fury, via rage... A wound that is now permanent. How can one live with that? And what about hope? Is hope now gone forever? And what if you cannot change anything? Rainer Werner Fassbinder once noted that even if you can't change anything, that doesn't remove your duty to document everything. What Gordeeva documents changes the world, too. You're now about to experience that for yourself." ―Dmitry Muratov, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Dimensions: 15.3 x 2.3 x 23.5 cm