Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Serhiy Zhadan • Yale University Press

ISBN-10: 0300235739 · ISBN-13: 978‑0300235739 · 2018

Live offer for this book: 1 live copy of this book from $5.40 (as of 2026-09-09).

Canonical book record

Completeness 64

Cover quality: low resolution

2manybooks editorial

A unique work of fiction from the troubled streets of Ukraine, giving invaluable testimony to the new history unfolding in the nation’s post-independence years This captivating book is Serhiy Zhadan’s ode to Kharkiv, the traditionally Russian-speaking city in Eastern Ukraine where he makes his home. A leader among Ukrainian post†‘independence authors, Zhadan employs both prose and poetry to address the disillusionment, complications, and complexities that have marked Ukrainian life in the decades following the Soviet Union’s collapse. His novel provides an extraordinary depiction of the lives of working-class Ukrainians struggling against an implacable fate: the road forward seems blocked at every turn by demagogic forces and remnants of the Russian past. Zhadan’s nine interconnected stories and accompanying poems are set in a city both representative and unusual, and his characters are simultaneously familiar and strange. Following a kind of magical-realist logic, his stories expose the grit and burden of stalled lives, the universal desire for intimacy, and a wistful realization of the off-kilter and even perverse nature of love.

Book metadata

Marketplace observations

1 live copy of this book from $5.40 (as of 2026-09-09).

Contributors

Community tags

Inferred themes

Machine-inferred from catalog text. Not verified subjects.

Community signals

Have: 5 · Like: 8 · Rating: 3.4 / 5 (10)