Artem Chapeye
(Артем Чапай)
An author of both creative nonfiction and popular fiction, Artem was born and raised in the small Western Ukrainian city of Kolomyia and has spent much of the last twenty years living in Kyiv. He has authored two novels and four books of creative nonfiction, and is a co-author of a book of war reportage. A four-time finalist of the BBC Book of the Year Award, his recent collection The Ukraine was one of three finalists in the award’s new nonfiction category in 2018. Artem is an avid traveler who has spent approximately two years living, working, and traveling in the U.S. and Central America—an experience that has greatly informed his writing. His work has been translated into seven languages, and has appeared in English in the Best European Fiction anthology and in publications such as Refugees Worldwide in translation by Marian Schwartz. Artem is a past recipient of the Central European Initiative Fellowship for Writers in Residence (Slovenia) and the Paul Celan Fellowship for Translators (Austria), as well as a finalist of the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism.
Born 1981 in Kolomyia, Ukraine.
Currently resides in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The Ukraine
Finalist for the 2018 BBC Nonfiction Book of the Year Award
The Ukraine is a collection of twenty-six essays and stories that deliberately blurs the lines between nonfiction and fiction, leaving the reader wondering which of its pieces are true and which fictionalized. Consciously and facetiously playing with the English misuse of the article “the” in reference to Ukraine, Chapeye essentializes “the Ukraine,” which, for him, differs from “Ukraine” and captures a Ukraine as perceived from the outside, by foreigners. This pseudo-kitsch, often historically shallow, and not-quite-real Ukraine nonetheless resonates for both author and reader because of its highly engaging and brutally candid snapshots of ordinary lives and typical places. The Ukraine conveys to the reader an aroma of Ukraine that is distinctly Ukrainian—at times unglorifying and irreverent, at times loving and tender, at times uncomfortable and inconvenient. In defiance of its misused article, the author’s “the Ukraine” is every Ukrainian’s Ukraine and encompasses the country’s good, bad, obnoxiously ugly, and achingly beautiful. It is, quite simply, Ukraine.
Translation sample available.
Key words: creative nonfiction, stories, Ukrainian Dasein, everyman’s Ukraine
Original publication: «The Ukraine», Books XXI, 2018
Anticipated word count: 62,000
English rights holder: Author
The Red Zone
Finalist for the 2014 BBC Book of the Year Award
Tony Tsyperdiuk, a young journalist, lives in a world divided into wealthy and safe Green Zones, where he lives and works, and poor and defenseless Red Zones in a Ukraine of the not-too-distant future. After accidentally committing murder, he flees to a neighboring Red Zone, of which he has only anecdotal knowledge. Caught in the throws of the ongoing battle of privilege between the entitled Zhyrnyks and the disadvantaged R-nyks that evolves into a struggle over land, Tony finds himself questioning his own prejudices and preconceptions as he first befriends R-nyks and subsequently realizes he has become one himself. In a dystopian world where the concept of “freedom” is synonymous with “freedom of the enterprise,” Tony faces the ultimate test of his morality and humanity: whether he can kill a person for personal gain. An uncannily timely work inspired in part by the author’s travels in Central America and the U.S., The Red Zone explores the worst-case scenarios of what happens when an elite begins building walls, and the questions about friend vs. foe we are all forced to confront as we contemplate the building of such walls.
Translation sample available.
Key words: popular fiction, dystopian fiction, societal division, economic privilege, walls
Original publication: «Червона зона», Nora-Druk, 2014
Anticipated word count: 95,000
English rights holder: Author
