Ukraine at War - by Daoud Sarhandi-Williams (Hardcover)

About the Book

"War came to Ukraine in February 2022; it was uninvited--although not entirely unexpected given Russia's steady, massive troop build-up on Ukraine's eastern border over the winter. When war exploded, millions of people around the world watched it compulsively on television"--

Book Synopsis

A unique book that showcases how Ukrainian society is expressing itself through art.

War came to Ukraine in February 2022; it was uninvited--although not entirely unexpected given Russia's steady, massive troop build-up on Ukraine's eastern border over the winter. When war exploded, millions of people around the world watched it compulsively on TV.

Daoud Sarhandi-Williams--author of the internationally-acclaimed Bosnian War Posters--traveled to Ukraine in the summer of 2022 to photograph street art. He gathered a lot more images besides--as well as a trove of extraordinary war poetry by Ukrainian citizens, shared internationally here for the first time. The author brings all these elements together in an original, multi-layered visual book that is moving, profound, and painfully beautiful.

With over 400 photos and artworks by the author and other contributors, the 320 pages of this book are a tribute to Ukraine's courage, heroism and struggle--and to her creativity, too.

Ukraine at War is a unique artistic testament to Ukrainian resilience and to world-changing events that are far from over. If you want to know what's in the heart of the Ukrainian people, look no further than this stunning book.

Review Quotes

"British filmmaker Sarhandi-Williams (Bosnian War Posters) spotlights the perseverance of art during war in this insightful collection of poetry and street art created by Ukrainians since the 2022 Russian invasion. Contending that "the Arts allow us to see beyond the shifting daily headlines... to core human values and deeper spiritual concerns," Sarhandi-Williams gathers poems from a website hosted by the State Arts Agency of Ukraine, "where Ukrainian citizens can freely upload their work." The tone of the poems varies; Anna Schmidt's merciless "Wild Orcs" likens Russian soldiers to the savage goblins from The Lord of the Rings (a "mindless horde... no longer human"), while in Nataliia Samruk's rueful "The Keys to Happiness," a woman "still trembling from having survived" recalls that she's holding "the keys to past happiness," including one "from the station waiting room/ Where no more trains will arrive for ages." The volume's visual art embodies Ukrainian resilience, whether in photos of a young woman posing in front of a tank as if she were a fashion model, or folk artist Varvara Logvyn's vibrant images of plants and flowers painted on steel antitank obstacles. This thoughtful assemblage brings into focus the myriad responses Ukrainians have had to the invasion. It's an enlightening and worthwhile volume."

"This book will guide you through today's Ukraine more honestly than any future history might."--Andrey Kurkov

About the Author

Daoud Sarhandi-Williams is an award-winning British filmmaker and a writer. He is the author of the internationally-acclaimed Bosnian War Posters (Interlink Books), a unique compilation of posters, political graphic design, and photos that was praised as the most valuable pictorial study of the bloodiest European conflict since 1945.

Andrey Kurkov was born near Leningrad in 1961, and graduated from Kyiv Pedagogical Academy of Foreign Languages in 1983. After working as a prison guard in Odesa and as a journalist, he self-published his writing and found renown as a novelist. His most recent novel, Grey Bees, tells the story of a lone beekeeper as he navigates the conflict in Eastern Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea. His novel Death and the Penguin, his first in English translation, is an international bestseller translated into more than thirty languages, and has been in print since its publication in 2001. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the author has issued unrivalled reports from his war-torn country in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Not only has he been a regular presence on radio and television, including BBC Radio 4's Letter from Ukraine, but he has travelled far and wide to lecture on the perilous state of his country. He has, in the process, become a crucial voice the people of Ukraine. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, was published in 2014, followed by Diary of an Invasion in 2022.