I searched Oksana on Reddit, because I'd thought Oksana Zabuzhko would come up, the author of the Ukrainian novel I'm reading, but instead I got the photo of a nurse who got her legs blown off by Russian bombs in Lysychansk. You can watch her husband dance with her at her wedding. You can watch her rehab. More rehab. There's another Oksana who died, she was an actress. Another Oksana is a sniper.
There's a woman in my neighborhood who is Ukrainian, who has a son my daughter sometimes plays with. She's a nurse. Different fate. She works long hard hours and takes a long subway ride. A woman from Honduras has a son her sons age, and they play a lot and she watches both kids. She cleans offices. Her husband is Mexican and works in a restaurant.
Where is it safe? Where is life good?
"...in general all that Ukrainians can say about themselves is how, and how much, and by which manner they were beaten." p. 115
"And where there's no beauty--how can there be truth?" p. 117
"Once upon a time I had a certain, oh so excellently programmed patriotic friend who constantly complained about the fact that we fall in love not with the man, but with the national ideal..." p. 115-6
Past posts on novel
Ubi panis ibi patria: This has notes on references I looked up.
Comments
Post a Comment