The Orphanage cover art

The Orphanage

A Novel

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The Orphanage

By: Serhiy Zhadan
Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
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About this listen

A devastating story of the struggle of civilians caught up in the conflict in eastern Ukraine

If every war needs its master chronicler, Ukraine has Serhiy Zhadan, one of Europe’s most promising novelists. Recalling the brutal landscape of The Road and the wartime storytelling of A Farewell to Arms, The Orphanage is a searing novel that excavates the human collateral damage wrought by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.

When hostile soldiers invade a neighboring city, Pasha, a thirty-five-year-old Ukrainian language teacher, sets out for the orphanage where his nephew Sasha lives, now in occupied territory. Venturing into combat zones, traversing shifting borders, and forging uneasy alliances along the way, Pasha realizes where his true loyalties lie in an increasingly desperate fight to rescue Sasha and bring him home.

Written with a raw intensity, this is a deeply personal account of violence that will be remembered as the definitive novel of the war in Ukraine.

©2017 The original Ukrainian edition was first published under the title Інтернат by Meridian Czernowitz, Chernivtsi in 2017. © 2017 by Serhij Zhadan. © 2018 by Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin. All rights reserved by and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin. Translation © 2021 by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing Fiction Genre Fiction War & Military War

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All stars
Most relevant
beautifuly narrated, emotional story, should be made in to a movie. If you love Ukraine and understand all the nuances you will love this audio book.

Amazing book about the 2014 invasion

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This book is so precious on so many levels. It's a road trip novel about a family reunion and trying to make up for a broken child's trust. It is also a thriller about escaping non-imaginary, non-fantastic, very real horrors and death threatening circumstances. It's about growing up to understand that there's no true neutrality in this world and there has never been one unless you're a tree or stray dog. But most importantly it's a uniquely life-like depiction of the way this war had started. This is the voice you have to listen to if you want to understand anything about this war's nuance and complexity the way it manifested for the local population. It's looking into the very root of modern Ukrainian civic society, about really starting to care.

An absolute gem of wartime literature

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Story doesn't get going, very simple and repetetive sentences. I just gave up after a couple of hours listening to the same descriptions over and over again.

Monotonous

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