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Start giftingThe Orphanage
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreA devastating story of the struggle of civilians caught up in the conflict in eastern Ukraine
If every war needs its master chronicler, Ukraine has Serhiy Zhadan, one of Europe’s most promising novelists. Recalling the brutal landscape of The Road and the wartime storytelling of A Farewell to Arms, The Orphanage is a searing novel that excavates the human collateral damage wrought by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.
When hostile soldiers invade a neighboring city, Pasha, a thirty-five-year-old Ukrainian language teacher, sets out for the orphanage where his nephew Sasha lives, now in occupied territory. Venturing into combat zones, traversing shifting borders, and forging uneasy alliances along the way, Pasha realizes where his true loyalties lie in an increasingly desperate fight to rescue Sasha and bring him home.
Written with a raw intensity, this is a deeply personal account of violence that will be remembered as the definitive novel of the war in Ukraine.
Serhiy Zhadan, widely considered to be one of the most important young writers in Ukraine, is also the author of Mesopotamia and What We Live For, What We Die For: Selected Poems.
Matthew Lloyd Davies is a veteran actor, audiobook narrator, and director. Highlights of his career include regular appearances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, in the West End, on international tours, and in award-winning television shows and films.With experience in radio, a master's degree in directing, and extensive experience in presenting at corporate events, Matthew has honed his ability to tell a story. It is that ability which he brings to each and every audiobook he narrates and produces.
Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler is a translator and poet.
Reilly Costigan‑Humes translates literature from the Ukrainian and Russian.
Reviews
“Brilliantly rendered into English by Reilly Costigan‑Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler, [The Orphanage] draws on Dante to offer a vivid glimpse of the current inferno in Eastern Ukraine.”
“A nightmarish, raw vision of contemporary eastern Ukraine under siege…The translators deserve credit for rendering Zhadan’s prose into colloquial English. This unblinkingly reveals a country’s devastation and its people’s passionate determination to survive.”
“Zhadan is a master of metaphors, and he creates very vivid portraits of ordinary people living in a battle zone.”
“A gray, marginal world in which life is punctuated by bursting shells and the ebb and flow of soldiers from either side…Ambient dread gives the novel a dystopian flavor, but Zhadan is writing about real life.”
“Matthew Lloyd Davies is the strong, somber voice of this searing novel…He brings across the enormity of Pasha’s task…Fans of international fiction and those wishing to learn more about this conflict, or pay tribute to it, will find much to admire here.”
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