Historical fiction books from Ukraine
Recommended historical fiction books (21)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into historical fiction here are some historical fiction books from Ukraine for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
11.
The Bridal Canopy by Samuel Joseph Agnon EN
Description:
The story of a poor but devout Galician Jew, Reb Yudel, who wanders the countryside with his companion, Nuta, during the early 19th century, in search of bridegrooms for his three daughters.
12.
The Courilof Affair by Irène Némirovsky EN
Description:
Set in Kiev and St Petersburg, this book tells the story of one man's inquisition during the Bolshevik Revolution. It is both an elegy to a world lost and an unsparing observation of human motives and behavior during a period of radical upheaval in European history.
13.
The Dogs and the Wolves by Irène Némirovsky EN
Description:
"This wonderful, panoramic novel goes right back to Ir ne Nemirovsky s roots, sweeping the reader from the Jewish quarter of a Ukrainian city in the early years of the twentieth century to Paris in the twenties and thirties, and back again to eastern Europe in a snowy winter on the eve of war. At its heart is a tragic love, between Ada from the poor Jewish quarter and Harry, son of a rich financier. The dogs are the comfortable, assimilated rich Jews up on the hill, while the wolves, their distant cousins, struggle below in the ghetto. Ada grows up motherless, looked after first by her father,... continue
14.
The Emperor's Tomb by Joseph Roth EN
Description:
A continuation of the saga of the von Trotta family from The Radetzky March, it is both a powerful and moving look at a decaying society and its journey through the War and its devastating aftermath, and the story of the erosion of one man's desperate faith in the virtues of a simple life.
15.
The Fires of Autumn by Irene Nemirovsky EN
Description:
This panoramic exploration of French life between the wars reads like a prequel to Irène Némirovsky’s international bestseller Suite Française. At the end of the First World War, Bernard Jacquelain returns from the trenches a changed man. Broken by the unspeakable horrors he has witnessed, he becomes addicted to the lure of wealth and success. He wallows in the corruption and excess of post-war Paris, but when his lover abandons him, Bernard turns to a childhood friend for comfort. For ten years, he lives the good bourgeois life, but when the drums of war begin to sound again, everything aroun... continue
16.
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector EN
Description:
The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector's consummate final novel, may well be her masterpiece.
17.
The Orphanage: A Novel by Serhiy Zhadan EN
Description:
"A Margellos World Republic of Letters Book."
18.
The Wine of Solitude by Irène Némirovsky EN
Description:
Imbued with melancholy, and regret, this work explores the troubled relationship between a young girl, her distant, self-absorbed mother and her mother's lover, Max. We follow the family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Helene grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into an angry young woman."
19.
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski EN
Description:
Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes. Published in Poland after the Second World War, these stories constitute a masterwork of world literatu... continue
20.
Wartime Lies : A Novel by Louis Begley EN
Description:
"Extraordinary...Rich in irony and regret...[the] people and settings are vividly realized and his prose [is] compelling in its simplicity." THE WALL STREET JOURNAL As the world slips into the throes of war in 1939, young Maciek's once closetted existence outside Warsaw is no more. When Warsaw falls, Maciek escapes with his aunt Tania. Together they endure the war, running, hiding, changing their names, forging documents to secure their temporary lives—as the insistent drum of the Nazi march moves ever closer to them and to their secret wartime lies.