Books: 111 posts

Books and reading lists

The Rooster House Now in Stores

My book The Rooster House was published yesterday by Virago Press. It’s being released during a trying time for my country. Even though its story begins in 2014, my book explains the context in which the Russian invasion takes place. It does so by focusing on ordinary people and their voices. While the book recounts Ukrainian history through a personal story, it celebrates four generations of remarkable women who held our family together through the most trying circumstances. As The Rooster House reveals, Ukrainian history is full of tragic events, but it is also a testament to the resilience and strength of Ukrainians. My great-grandmother Asya and my grandmother Valentina possessed incredible emotional resources, which made them able to protect their family and take care of their land.

As I wrote my memoir, I sought to capture my grandmothers’ lessons in seeking beauty and deriving support from creative pursuits like embroidery or gardening. For this reason, Ukrainian culture and art form the leitmotif of The Rooster House, and I take the reader on a journey with me through descriptions of Ukrainian scents, foods, nature, and arts. My memoir is an invitation to stroll through our cherry orchard in Bereh and become more intimately familiar with the elements that make up the colorful and diverse Ukrainian identity.

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My Favorite Childhood Book

A few days ago I was going through some old photos when I came across this image of my mother and me taken in our apartment in Kyiv. I must have been 5-6 years old and I still remember this photo session. My father’s friend Petya, a professional photographer, came over to take photos of our family and had us pose in different ways. For some reason, I didn’t like posing the way Petya suggested, so my mother gave me a book and the result was this photograph.

The moment I picked up the photo, I could imagine the heft of that book, its shiny green cover and the colorful drawings of plants. I recalled that it was a book of medicinal plants. It used to be one of my favorite books to leaf through, and  when I learned to read, to lose myself in its descriptions of plants, their aromas and healing properties. The more I thought about the book, the more my later fascination with flowers and fragrances made sense.

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Hay Festival Wales 2023 : Meet Me on June 2

I’m delighted to share that I will be participating in Hay Festival Wales 2023. The program is now live at hayfestival.org/wales.

Friday 2 June 2023, 5.30pm
Event 298 Victoria Belim and Kevin Jared Hosein in conversation with Rosie Goldsmith
I recently read Hosein’s novel Hungry Ghosts and it moved and impressed me, so I look forward to our conversation.

I will also participate in Passa Porta Festival in Brussels on March 26th, when Oksana Zabuzhko and I will meet for a conversation. If you are in Brussels, I hope to meet you there. For my other book news, please take a look at The Rooster House book page.

In other news, I made the cover of The Bookseller magazine last month. I spoke with Caroline Sanderson about The Rooster House, Ukraine and yearning for home. Our interview is included in the issue.

“A Wild Swans for Ukraine is how I’ve come to think of The Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family Memoir by Victoria Belim. An enthralling richly-layered story told across four generations, it’s a major 2023 title for Virago, was one of the most talked-about books at London Book Fair 2022 and is set to be published in 16 languages. It powerfully illuminates the context of the current conflict in Ukraine but goes beyond it too in reflecting on culture and art, geography and language and how they influence the complexities of who we are.” Victoria Belim in conversation about her memoir, a history of her family’s past and a celebration of Ukrainian identity

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Reading Sa’di’s Gulistan

Master, ‘ostad,’ is a nickname the Persian poet Sa’di of Shiraz (1210-1291/92) rightfully deserves. His verses are elegant and his prose contains many thoughtful observations on morals, love, and life in general. Sa’di’s Gulistan, Rose Garden, written in 1258 was once a book of instruction and it remains one of the marvels of Persian literature. I recommend the translation by W.M. Thackston. You can open the book at random and find marvelous passages on different topics: The Art of Conversation, on Love, on the Conduct of Kings, on Dervishes.

I’m reading the Persian section out loud to savor the beautiful language of Sa’di. You can also find it recorded online in Persian, and even if you don’t understand the language, you will still enjoy Sa’di’s musicality.

Here is one favorite passage:
“Are you musk or ambergris?” I asked, “for I am intoxicated by your enchanting fragrance.”
“I used to be just mud,” it said. “A mere nothing, but I sat for a time with the roses,
And the perfection of my companions had an effect on me. Otherwise I am nothing but dust.”

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Three Travelogues to Read This Fall

With summer travels winding down, autumn is a good time to turn to travelogues to satisfy one’s wanderlust. I have always been a fan of this genre, being a traveler myself, and recent releases promise to take us to far-flung locations. My favorite travelogues combine explorations of culture with history and provide a way to understand how the past influences the present.

A good traveler arrives at a place without strong preconceived notions and allows it to take them in–or reject them, as sometimes happens. This sensitivity is what distinguishes modern travel writing from classical examples, but all excellent travelogues share the same trait in that they transport the reader to another place. When our world feels narrower due to travel restrictions and cumbersome rules, opening a book is the easiest way to break down walls.

Erica Fatland, The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage.

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