Your Ad Could Go Here: Stories
Ukraine

Your Ad Could Go Here: Stories

by Oksana Zabuzhko

Identity & Belonging Fiction Short Stories 2020

Summary

In Your Ad Could Go Here: Stories, Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko brings together a collection of fiction exploring the intimate connections between personal experience, collective memory, and national identity. Originally published in Ukrainian in 2014, the collection moves between the political upheavals of independent Ukraine and the seemingly ordinary dramas of everyday life, revealing how history shapes even the most private moments.

Through stories involving the Orange Revolution, family rivalries, romantic encounters, and unexpected personal triumphs, Zabuzhko examines the stories people tell themselves to make sense of their lives. Her characters navigate the complicated relationship between truth and illusion, individual desires and collective expectations, and the past and present. Myth, folklore, and fairy-tale elements frequently enter these recognisable settings, unsettling the boundary between what is real and what is imagined.

Lyrical, intellectually playful, and sharply observant, the collection explores how personal narratives become intertwined with cultural memory. Zabuzhko asks how individuals and nations construct their identities—and what happens when the stories that sustain them begin to unravel.

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Country
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About the author
Oksana Zabuzhko
Oksana Zabuzhko

Oksana Zabuzhko is a Ukrainian novelist, poet, essayist, and public intellectual, born in Lutsk, Ukraine, in 1960. She studied philosophy at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and earned a doctorate in philosophy of arts, specialising in aesthetics. Her academic background informs her writing, which examines Ukrainian identity, feminism, cultural memory, and the lasting effects of colonialism. Zabuzhko gained international recognition with her groundbreaking novel Field Work in Ukrainian Sex (1996), a bold exploration of female sexuality, gender inequality, and the relationship between personal experience and national identity. Her other major works include The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (2009), an ambitious novel tracing Ukrainian history across generations, and Notre Dame d’Ukraine, a study of writer and intellectual Lesya Ukrainka and her place in Ukrainian cultural history. Her writing combines literary experimentation with philosophical and historical inquiry, challenging dominant narratives and exploring how personal lives are shaped by political forces. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Among her many honours are Ukraine’s Taras Shevchenko National Prize, awarded in 2019, and France’s National Order of the Legion of Honour, awarded in 2023. Zabuzhko remains one of the most influential voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature.

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Details
Published
2020
Author
Oksana Zabuzhko