Five fiction books that will help you understand Ukraine

Ukrainian literature offers a rich way into the country’s history, culture and identity.

As more Ukrainian works become available in English translation, readers have an expanding range of voices and perspectives to discover. But where to begin?

Here are five books to help get you started. These five books take readers through time and across Ukraine.

They are presented here in acclaimed translations by leading writers, translators, scholars and cultural practitioners.

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Want to support Ukraine? Read its books

1. The City by Valerian Pidmohylnyi (1928)

Translated and introduced by Maxim Tarnawsky in 2025

Originally written in 1927 and published a year later in Kharkiv during Soviet rule, The City became available as a complete English translation for the first time in 2025.

This classic modernist novel is set in the early 1920s in post-revolutionary Kyiv amid rapid industrialisation. Stepan Radchenko, the provincial protagonist, moves to Kyiv to seek his fortune, but a series of events changes him irrevocably and life does not turn out as he had expected.

Pidmohylnyi, a writer and translator, was arrested and incarcerated in 1934. He was shot along with nearly 300 other Ukrainian writers, artists and cultural figures, during mass executions to mark the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1938. The City was banned and did not become available again until Ukraine gained its independence in 1991.

Translated by Halyna Hryn in 2011

This landmark feminist novel was first published in 1996 in Kyiv, five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and during the early years of Ukraine’s independence.

The book immediately caused controversy in Ukrainian society due to its bold portrayal of female sexuality, erotic desire and its feminist critique of gender relations – topics rarely set out in Ukrainian print previously. However, it remained a bestseller in Ukraine for the next decade and is now considered a cult classic.

The novel explores post-colonial Ukraine and Ukrainian identity through the story of a volatile and emotionally abusive love affair between a Ukrainian poet and a troubled artist. Zabuzhko, novelist, poet, essayist and public intellectual, was the recipient of the Shevchenko National Prize in 2019, Ukraine’s highest award for works of art and culture.

Translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Wheeler in 2016

The title Voroshilovgrad is the former Soviet name of Luhansk, the administrative centre of Ukraine’s Luhansk region.

First published in 2010 in Kharkiv, this darkly humorous road novel about a homecoming is set in post-Soviet eastern Ukraine before the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014. It explores the complexities of memory and identity.

Zhadan is a poet, novelist and rockstar who is currently serving in Ukraine’s armed forces. He was the recipient of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought in 2022.

4. Felix Austria by Sophia Andrukhovych (2014)

Translated and introduced by Vitaly Chernetsky in an edition to be published in January 2027

This historical fiction novel highlights Ukraine’s close connections with western Europe and the challenges of being at the crossroads between empires.

Set at the turn of the 20th century in Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk), the story takes place in a city under the rule of the multicultural Habsburg Empire.

It focuses on a complex and intense relationship between two women: Adela, the daughter of the city’s wealthy German doctor, and Stefania, her Ukrainian servant, against a rich backdrop of Ukrainian, Polish, German and Jewish communities.

Edited by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, Anastasia Levkova and Askold Melnyczuk. With an introduction by Alim Aliev

This collaborative translation and adaptation is the first anthology of contemporary fiction and poetry by Crimean Tatar writers to be published in English translation.

It delves into the stories of an indigenous people who were deported from their homeland in 1944 by Stalin and only able to begin returning in significant numbers after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collection also explores life under Russian occupation since 2014 and its consequences.

Together, these five books reveal a Ukraine that is European and multicultural, shaped by successive empires but defined by its own literary traditions.

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