I Will Die in a Foreign Land
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  • Published: 22 September 2022
  • ISBN: 9781529903355
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
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I Will Die in a Foreign Land

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EBook
22 Sep 2022
Audiobook
22 Sep 2022
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Set during the 2014 revolution in Ukraine, a unique prizewinning debut fiction that combines history, folklore, oral history and news reports to give a human face and understanding to the complexity of today's conflict.

Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award
Best Book of the Year - New York Public Library, Cosmopolitan, Independent Book Review

'Pickhart's story is powerful, boldly imaginative, rich in history and feeling, charged with events that have occurred since it was written - and which summon up the same force of the history that compelled an American author to write about this "foreign land".' The Times

2014 Kyiv, Ukraine. The city is poised on a knife-edge as tensions mount around a corrupt government's increasing ties to Russia. As protests erupt across the city, the fates of four individuals come together. Katya is a Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic treating wounded protesters; Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, near Chernobyl, grieving the death of his wife; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination; Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, climbs atop a burned-out bus at Independence Square and plays the piano.

In this dazzling, inventive debut novel - set during the 'Revolution of Dignity' - Kalani Pickhart weaves together a rich tapestry of voices to create a moving story about beauty, love and survival during tumultuous times.
  • Published: 22 September 2022
  • ISBN: 9781529903355
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Kalani Pickhart

Kalani Pickhart was selected as an inaugural 2022 New Voices Literary Fellow for the Sun Valley Writer's Conference, and has been the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia G. Piper Center and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies. I Will Die in a Foreign Land has been recently long-listed for the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and has been named a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award. Kalani currently lives and writes in Phoenix, Arizona.

Praise for I Will Die in a Foreign Land

An unforgettable reading experience and a critical lesson in ongoing global history.

Booklist

This bighearted novel generously portrays the unforgettable set of characters through their determination to face oppression. It's a stunner.

Publishers Weekly, Starred review

A debut that is as thoughtful as it is explosive.

BuzzFeed

Rooted in historical events, the novel follows four unforgettable characters finding their way amidst the violence and turmoil, striving to live and not just survive. So gorgeous and oh so very timely.

Literary Hub

A fully immersive experience that's perfect for a winter read.

Cosmopolitan, Best Historical Fiction Novels of the year

Simply breathtaking in its scope. Pickhart's storytelling is flawless with nothing gratuitous or superfluous. She has taken a large, complex subject and rendered it both tragic and tender by reminding the reader that in the end, the individual life touched by conflict is what really matters.

New York Journal of Books

In many ways, the book feels like an ode to the everyman of Ukraine. With a deft hand, it celebrates those who strive to heal when the world around them feels broken, and the bravery required to love against the odds.

BookBrowse

The sort of ambitious debut novel that makes you sit up and take notice... announces an exciting new voice in fiction.

The Chicago Review of Books

Pickhart's characters are rich and real, flawed and scared, brave and noble. They betray and they are betrayed, sexually and politically and in every other way... By telling stories of those who live in history but refuse to fully succumb to it, Pickhart recuperates the humanity of the people of Ukraine and celebrates their lives as human beings, not as footnotes to someone else's history.

Necessary Fiction

Since 1991, Ukraine has experienced three revolutions, and Pickhart elegantly captures how these events build up inside a person, giving many Ukrainians an acute awareness of the self as both agent and consequence of history.

Sonya Bilocerkowycz, author of On Our Way Home from the Revolution

Innovative, emotionally resonant, and deeply affecting, this is a more-than-promising debut from a very talented writer.

Kirkus, Starred review

Powerful debut ... an impressive feat of empathy ... a rich, multilayered story [that] will resonate with a wide range of readers, and provide illuminating insight for those hoping to learn more about the current conflict.

Guardian

Pickhart's story is powerful, boldly imaginative, rich in history and feeling, charged with events that have occurred since it was written - and which summon up the same force of the history that compelled an American author to write about this "foreign land".

The Times

An innovative and compelling debut... I Will Die in a Foreign Land is an illuminating and worthwhile read.

The Irish Times