МоÑ�ковіада is set during the time of the collapsing Soviet Union, the central character, Otto von F. — like Andrukhovych himself in those years — a Ukrainian poet who is a student at the (in)famous Gorki Institute, the Soviet answer to the creative writing MFA-programme. It begins with an amusing run-down of Soviet writing-school life, [...]

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ДванадцÑ�Ñ‚ÑŒ обручів is a novel of the contemporary Ukraine, but Yuri Andrukhovych sets it largely in relatively isolated locales, concentrating on a few characters — allowing him to all the more effectively tie the past in with the present.
One of the central figures is an Austrian photographer, Karl-Joseph Zumbrunnen. His name sounds straight out [...]

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Recreations is a Ukrainian novella, filled with local allusions and references (usefully glossed in the accompanying endnotes). The central event is a ‘Festival of the Resurrecting Spirit’, held in Chortopil (literally: Devilsburg), the main characters four poets who have been invited to participate. Written as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Recreations is a novel of [...]

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