Winner of the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year Award Winner of the Usedom Literature Prize From one of Ukraine's most prolific contemporary authors comes this profound novel of belonging and uprootedness, as understood by two exiles across time. An award-winning novel from one of Ukraine's most prolific contemporary authors, Forgottenness tells a spellbinding story of belonging and uprootedness, as understood by two exiles across time. An exceedingly anxious narrator grapples with a host of conditions, from obsessive-compulsive disorder to a creeping sense of agoraphobia. As her symptoms deepen, she finds unexpected solace researching Viacheslav Lypynskyi (1882-1931), a social and political activist of Polish descent who played a pivotal role in the struggle for Ukrainian independence--and who nursed his own comorbidities. In this long-deceased ideologue the narrator finally finds companionship, mining her country's history in pursuit of a better grasp over her own. Brilliantly translated by Zenia Tompkins, Forgottenness movingly illuminates the intricacies of the Ukrainian experience and announces Tanja Maljartschuk as an essential voice in contemporary world literature.

Forgottenness: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Maljartschuk, Tanja

Literary

Liveright

A Biography of a Chance Miracle explores the life of Lena, a young girl growing up in the somewhat vapid, bureaucracy-ridden and nationalistic Western Ukrainian city of San Francisco. Lena is a misfit from early childhood due to her unwillingness to scorn everything Russian, her propensity for befriending forlorn creatures, her aversion to the status quo, and her fear of living a stupid and meaningless life. As her friends enter college, Lena sets forth on a mission to defend the abused and downtrodden of San Francisco—be they canine or human—armed with nothing more than an arsenal of humor, stubbornness, chutzpah and no shortage of imagination. Her successes are minimal at best, but in the process of trying to save San Francisco’s collective humanity, she may end up saving her own. At first glance a crazy and combative girl, Lena just may be the salvation that the Ukrainians of San Francisco sorely need.
With haiku-like precision, Tanja’s deceptively simple writing style blends surrealism and magical realism with satirical wit, occasionally outlandish humor and poignant social commentary. The German literary media has described her depictions of contemporary Ukraine as full of humor and absurdity, but “more exact and harsher” than those of her peers, comparing her to the 19th-century Russian satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin and hailing her as “a name to be remembered.” This work, her most provocative to date, was a finalist for the 2012 BBC Book of the Year Award in Ukraine, and has been lauded as “simply ingenious” by fellow Ukrainian authors.
Winner of the 2018 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the top prize at the Festival of German-Language Literature, for her short story “Frösche im Meer.” This literary event, held annually in Klagenfurt, Austria, recognizes outstanding works in the German language, and this year Tanja Maljartschuk took the top prize at the event with the very first story she has written in her second language, German.

A Biography of a Chance Miracle

Cadmus Press

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Books by Maljartschuk, Tanja

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Maljartschuk, Tanja. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Forgottenness: A Novel

A Biography of a Chance Miracle