IPPY Book Award 2020 Silver Medal Winner!* “I am stunned by the sad beauty. I feel like I’ve gotten a present. That’s how I feel after reading a really brilliant book or story.” – Marina Osipova, How Dare the Birds Sing Kiev. 1942. Larissa is a renowned embroiderer, surviving in occupied Ukraine as a seamstress in her ruin of a workshop. When an SS officer arrives to order a traditionally … seamstress in her ruin of a workshop. When an SS officer arrives to order a traditionally embroidered Ukrainian shirt, Larissa uses the opportunity to create a piece of art from her handiwork. Threading together the history and the horrors between the two enemies, she finds a way to express her defiance toward the Nazis and the local collaborators. But at what price?
Prepare yourself for an unforgettable journey behind the Second World War’s eastern front. Six short stories, based on the author’s family’s true accounts, will put you alongside painters and poets, partisans and dissidents, as they navigate through Ukraine’s war-torn landscape on a harrowing escape from tyranny. The title story,
Souvenirs from Kiev, was awarded 2nd Place in the 2014 HNS International Short Story Award. (*IPPY: Military and Wartime Fiction Category)
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Being a grandaughter of Spanish and Japanese immigrants I am fully aware of the difficulties arisen from war. These are times when men show their ugliness defending a political belief and turning inocents´s lives in hell. As the author states that she used fiction to put the narrative together and everything told had really happened I found it amazing to end reading the book and being able to believe that still there is a future and a belief in mankind. Beautifully written ! Highly recommended!
In Souvenirs from Kiev, the author writes in the forward:
“In the end, it is clear that on top of having the pieces, one must understand that it is not a puzzle; it is a kaleidoscope, and the craft of a storyteller is to provide the color and the patterns; the experience.”
In this collection of six short stories, Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger has done just that. She’s provided a kaleidoscope that collages together the pieces of the past with the creation of fictional characters based on her many interviews with people and family from this time in history. With the artistry of her words she has taken me closer to the horrors of WWII than I’ve ever gotten before. This journey through the Ukraine she transports us to is through the hearts of the people. Though they are fictional characters, they have jumped off the page and come alive to me as I’ve stepped through the streets and villages of the Ukraine with them.
Although my heart breaks as I see the horrific events of WWII replay before my eyes, I still keep reading from tale to tale, entranced as I see the lives – the heart and character, the hopes and dreams – of the Ukrainian people in the tales.
I highly recommend Souvenirs from Kiev. In these six tales, Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger proves that she is a master storyteller.
I received an advance copy of Souvenirs from Kiev in exchange for an honest review.
This is a moving and heart wrenching account of the people of the Ukraine during WWII when Hitler sent his army into their land. Six stories from different points of view. Each character is unique, interesting and complex. There is so much history and detailed descriptions that will move you and make your heart ache for the people and how they suffered. I wonder how they endured such horror and managed to survive. Be prepared to read this book nonstop as I did. I received an advanced reader’s copy for my honest review. I am so honored that I got the opportunity to read and review this awesome book.
A read that is fiction, but based on stories told to the author by relatives who lived in Ukraine during WWII. You would like to think that people were civilized, but in the time of war, they seem to lose all sense of humanity. An informative read.
One of the best WWII books I’ve ever read
By the impression Souvenirs from Kiev made on me, I would compare this book to The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. Disturbing in their descriptions of the brutality experienced in war, mesmerizing in its literary expressions, authentic as a chronicle told in the voices of six different people—some in first person, some in third, some in past, some in present, but always moving the reader forward through the history of the war—from 1942 to the end. And each character is somehow connected to the last; each character picks up where the other one left off, moving from the east in Kiev and Kharkiv, to ending in Bavaria, Germany in a displaced persons camp. The author’s mastery in language is meant for writing stories like these. Her craft is simply powerful.
It was an emotional read for me. I connected with the main characters and felt as though they were telling their stories to me personally. I empathized with their sufferings, cringed about some situations they ended up in, got goose bumps at unexpected acts of kindness, and thrilled (the last story) at the happy ending at least for one particular family, who after years of being immersed in the horror that is war–including time in a German labor camp– are able to once again recognize there is always—at some level—goodness to be found. It is a strong message of hope; a strong message of reuniting on a human scale. I will not reveal any more details as not to spoil your pleasure in discovering what awaits you in these six stories, inspired by the author’s relatives’ personal accounts. I would highly recommend this book to everyone who is interested in war stories.
In the book you’ll find daily life scenes, political situations, details about the landscape, and even life in a German camp.
Life-work-death reveal emotions and feelings, the importance of small things: bread, shoes, how the forest was used to incite
battles or flee from them.
The book has 6 short stories, where fear is the main character.
The book also has a map, glossary and an interesting and useful historical background that inform about the complex history
of the Ukrainians in the cities and in the countries during the big awful war.
All these make the book complete —almost like a novel–and I even think it would be a useful text for teachers and high school
students.
Unfortunately, few books tell us about the Ukrainians’ plight during WWII.
Congrats to the author.
I enjoyed this collection of fictionalized stories of the author’s relatives who survived WWII. I’ve never read the history of the Ukranian people during the war and this book filled in a lot of what happened to the people during the Nazi and Soviet occupations. The stories brought the relatives to life, to tell the stories of what they suffered during this time. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in WWII or history in general. Well written. The author includes a brief history of the region during WWII as well as history of her relatives who lived the stories.
I received and advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
One of the best books I have read in a long time. Inspired by accounts of various family members who lived through the horrors of World War II in Ukraine, in the labor camps in Germany, and in displaced persons camps after the war. While it is pitched as a collection of separate stories and each can indeed be read independently, the stories are loosely linked through family connections and a consecutive time frame and together form an arc of heartrending history. Lucyk-Berger’s writing is stunning. She rings lyrical beauty out of experiences that shatter the soul. Exquisite details lend color and texture to the stories; for instance, at one point, in order to ease tensions and distract enemy soldiers, one character in the book engages the soldiers in a game of egg cracking—something we always played at Easter. Against the backdrop of one of the most heartbreaking and devastating set of decades in Ukrainian history, starting with the Holodymor and continuing with the vice grip exerted by the Germans and the Soviets in turn, the author conveys the remarkable resilience of Ukrainians, whose family spirit, generosity, and sense of humor shines through. I might add that the author provides a short glossary, very helpful for those not so familiar with the history.
It is not easy to write about the war years. So much cruelty and so much randomness in the outcomes. But the author manages to create tales that are both truthful and poignant.
Possessing good material from her own family, the author manages to weave the six tales in a continuum that ends in much-needed hope. Each tale grips you and makes you feel the despair and the feeling of loss, of how everything can change in the blink of an eye. The tale of the little girl in the camp was certainly the most hurtful one but the last one following the flight of the Ukrainian family was for me the best.
I certainly hope the author continues bringing her family and her country’s tales.
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader copy of this book.
I received an ARC copy of this collection of short stories from Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger and publisher Inktreks. Thank you both for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger to friends and family. She writes a story with heart and soul in every chapter. Now I must read her Reschen Valley Series.
I had only a vague idea that the people of Ukraine were so affected by WWII so early on. This book brings to us that time, those choices or lack thereof, the uncompromising horror of it all on the families, ordinary people, with the battle lines still so far to the east. People who watched their life, their history for many generations wilt and burn before their eyes. People who thought the Germans would help them escape the oppression of the Russians already suffered for years.
Maybe the best part of this novel is the trailing chapters giving life to Lucyk-Berger’s immersion in family memories and intense research of the subjects involved. These stories break your heart. The closing information makes you angry for those left out of the history books. And anxiety when you see the cycle of oppression repeating in this day and age. Until you read something like this you forget that the Russians and Poles and Germans battled so intensely even before the first shot fired in what we acknowledge as WWII. Our vision of that war is contained, for the most part, in the war that WE fought. Half the world battled for years before Americans became physically involved. These stories are a blueprint for what is happening again in Ukraine and beyond. We cannot with a good conscious look away again.
I had the opportunity to read some excerpts from this book. I am not aware if the narratives in the book offered here are more complete than what I experienced. What I read was captivating and compelling–so much more than a historical account of the times. I felt as if I were there with the characters. I will be looking for more books by this author.