Yevgenia Belorusets is a photographer and writer from Kyiv, Ukraine. Before the war, she was actively involved with protests against the destruction of heritage sites in Kyiv. Since Russia invaded, she has been vocal about her experiences living in a country under siege.
Lucky Breaks is a series of vignettes, detailing the lives of ordinary women doing the best they can to carry on their lives in war-torn Kyiv. In a similar vein to
Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Lucky Breaks is a fragmentary novel rather than a collection of short stories. In isolation, each segment appears as a simple snap-shot (fitting considering Belorutsets is primarily a photographer, and a connection I hadn't made until I used that phrase), but together they tell a larger story. The focus of the book is often on the mundane, with the destruction of war in the background. The protagonists remind me of windup toys, or automatons, in a post-apocalyptic setting: following orders they were given long ago, seemingly ridiculous in the changed circumstances. But told from the perspective of those on the ground, these routines lose their absurdity. To many in the city war, although it has changed their lives, is abstract. They are not involved with air-strikes or counterinsurgencies, except in being caught in the crossfire. What option do they have but carry on the best they can? To worry about the day-to-day mundanities which affect everyone, Ukrainian, British or Russian.
Lucky Breaks is a tender, but unforgiving portrayal of life in Ukraine.
★★★★☆
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