The Length of Days: An Urban Ballad by Volodymyr Rafeyenko geography landscapes

landscapes

an epic array of short fictional tales reflecting the fifteen years that Varlam Shalamov spent in the Soviet Gulag

writes samizdat (underground political self-publications)

powerfully argued

whose rendering of the rich Odessan slang is pitch-perfect

The Length of Days: An Urban Ballad by Volodymyr Rafeyenko geography landscapesThe Length of Days: An Urban Ballad is set mostly in the composite Donbas city of Zan uncanny foretelling of what this letter has come to symbolize since February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine. Several embedded narratives attributed to an alcoholic chemist turned massage therapist give insight into the funny, ironic, or tragic lives of people who remained in the occupied Donbas after Russias initial aggression in