The Orphanage

Pasha’s quest is to bring his nephew home from an orphanage. But this is eastern Ukraine and he must navigate the Gray Zone, a landscape of threat, death, and shifting languages, lines, and loyalties.

With the people he meets along the way, he shares hardship and suffering and, at times, personal animosity while there’s no predicting who will meet with sudden death. Zhadan’s powerful novel isn’t just topical. He plunged me into the reality of civilians in wartime in an astounding work I won’t soon forget. I am grateful to the translators.