In this article for Dwutygodnik, culture critic and Documenting Ukraine grantee Anastasia Platonova interviewed Sofia Andrukhovych, Ukrainian writer and transaltor. In the following conversation they discuss how the author's perspective and approach to writing have evolved over nearly three years of full-scale war, as well as Sofia's new book.
ANASTASIA PLATONOVA: How has your personal perspective and attitude toward your primary professional tool—writing—transformed over nearly three years of full-scale war?
SOFIYA ANDRUKHOVYCH: In my case, the transformation has been somewhat paradoxical. Like the rest of Ukrainians, throughout this war, I have found myself thinking in terms that are closer to black and white. And that’s natural—now, more than ever, we need to clearly distinguish between what is right and what is wrong, which leads us to simplify many things. The reality of war constantly keeps us in proximity to death and the existential questions that come with it—absolute concepts that are difficult to articulate without sounding overly solemn. At the same time, pathos is dangerous, so I try to avoid it however I can. Of course, I have felt its influence—especially at the beginning of the full-scale war. Now, when I look back at my essays from that period, I see tonal imbalances. But given what was happening at the time, it’s easy to understand why.
In my writing, I constantly strive to maintain a balance between what is important, what is truly serious and not to be taken lightly, and what should still be approached with common sense and humor. After all, in extreme circumstances, people tend to joke more. But that humor evolves along with us—it becomes darker, sharper.
Over these three years of war, I have also finally come to accept my role as a writer. I’ve simply made peace with the fact that this is the one thing I can do. And I’ve realized that I can do it well—that I can be effective in this space. And right now, taking action is more important than ever.
How do you currently define your role as a writer?
For me, it’s closely tied to subjective experience. In my writing, I try to avoid universal truths and broad categories, focusing instead on micro-experiences—those small, often-overlooked moments that people tend to ignore or dismiss.
While working on my previous novel, Amadoka, I grappled with vast, monumental themes. But after its completion, and especially with the start of the full-scale war, I found myself shifting more toward subtleties and personal experience. For me, this shift is about precision—about carefully examining smaller, less obvious details, the things that may not seem significant at first glance but, in reality, are deeply important.
Your new book, Katanankhe, is set in the near future, in a time when the war has already ended. What was it like to write about a post-war period while the war is still ongoing?
In some ways, Katanankhe is closely connected to Amadoka [ed. note: Andrukhovych's previous novel, published in 2020]—it’s essentially a continuation of what I was already exploring. But this book also emerged from my need to talk about the war at a time when I felt I had to seek new artistic approaches. Yet, at the same time, I struggled to find meaning in writing fiction at all.
For many Ukrainian cultural professionals, the full-scale invasion shattered any sense of purpose in their work.
That happened to me, too. And that feeling lasted for a while until the idea of imagining the war’s end came to me. The moment I envisioned it, it suddenly gave me a profound sense of purpose. I began to believe in what I was writing: in the story, in the narrative. It became a space where the future felt possible. Through the fates and actions of my characters, I discovered something deeply meaningful, something filled with significance. And in that way, the act of writing became real for me again.
A significant part of Katanankhe is set in Obolon, the Kyiv district where you live with your family. During the first six months of the full-scale invasion, you stayed in your childhood hometown of Ivano-Frankivsk. When you eventually returned to Kyiv, you said that the city now felt as familiar as your own hand or foot. In this sense, it would be interesting to talk about the role of place and how the concept of home has transformed for you.
The forced loss of one’s home—even temporarily—is an incredibly difficult and deeply personal experience. When someone loses a place that is dear to them, their home, or their connection to something they strongly identify with, they inevitably feel vulnerable and disoriented.
For me, evacuating to the city where I was born was an indescribably painful experience. At the same time, returning to Ivano-Frankivsk after so many years allowed me to rediscover it as an adult, and in that sense, it was a meaningful experience. But my longing for Kyiv was almost physically unbearable. And strangely, that feeling became even more intense after we returned from evacuation. It was as if I had to reclaim the city for myself. That process deepened my sense of home, making it even more profound and undeniable. It also reinforced how fragile it all is—how easily a person can be stripped of their history.
That fear of loss is precisely why Obolon appears as a place in Katanankhe. The book was born from my fear of losing a place that holds so much for me—my life, my sense of self, the people I love, and even the mundane routines that, in times of peace, might seem unremarkable or trivial. But the moment you lose those routines, even briefly, you realize just how precious they are. You begin to understand that these seemingly ordinary details are, in fact, the fabric of life itself. The streets where you live, the paths you walk your dog on, the cafés where you meet friends, the playgrounds where your child once played—these moments become etched into you at a cellular level. The memory of apartment buildings, stairwells, local markets—they are an inseparable part of who you are.
And knowing just how close I came to losing it all forever has instilled in me an unwavering determination to never let it be taken away. To never allow myself to be erased, shattered, or broken apart. To be able to say, "This is mine. This is still mine."
This book was born from the fear of losing a place that means everything to me.
In one of your interviews, you mentioned that working on Katanankhe somehow brought to the surface the same woman you were when writing your debut text, Salmon, about 15 years ago. How can writing move the timeline and influence our sense of self? And how was this the case with Katanankhe?
It’s true, Katanankhe really brought out the same woman I was when writing Salmon. At the same time, this is a text of a completely different nature. For me, Katanankhe is the most mature text I’ve written, in every sense. From the structure of the plot to how I worked on the text and what I understood about it, it feels much more deliberate and self-aware compared to Salmon.
Recently, I reread Salmon for the first time in many years (and it wasn’t easy), and I realized that I saw it as a whole—despite all its weaknesses and the obvious lack of writing experience I had at the time.
But I saw the meaning of the text and looked at my own development as a writer from a distance. This gave me a profound sense of satisfaction. In fact, with Salmon, I crossed every possible boundary, speaking about things that people usually avoid talking about, thinking about, or remembering, things they hide from others and even from themselves. In Salmon, I unearthed all those experiences and described them in a very straightforward way. Looking at this important book of mine from today’s perspective, I realize it was quite brave. And because of that, I can respect the young woman who once wrote that candid novel.
How do you now view the young writer you saw when rereading Salmon?
She is a very brave woman who didn’t fully realize what she was doing, but she managed to do what she set out to do. And she brought that text to a certain level of completeness.
The last chapter of Salmon may seem terribly cruel because it deals with the fragmentation of the human body. But in reality, it’s about writing and what it really is — it’s an absolute vulnerability and complete exposure to the whole world. It’s about letting anyone who wants to come inside.
It’s no coincidence that we’re talking about the young brave Sofia who once wrote Salmon, as you have a feminist perspective and a deep, conscious view of the role of women: in society, in art. Your heroines in Katanankhe each, in their own way, break stereotypes about what a woman can or cannot do. How important is this perspective in your texts?
For me, it’s really very important. And it comes from both the knowledge and understanding of myself, as well as from constantly observing women who are close to me or whom I know. From moments that others might overlook, but which I notice and analyze. It’s also a constant inner disagreement with the worthlessness of stereotypes and with our habit of accepting these established ideas, which sometimes need to be challenged.
For me, it’s not some kind of theorizing—on the contrary, this perspective comes from the feeling of living characters, my protagonists. They very often dictate their own personalities to me, which, of course, are also borrowed from real-life prototypes. I always see the future story, and then it unfolds on its own, with the characters sometimes starting to dictate certain plot twists and the logic of their own behavior.
Katanankhe, especially in contrast to the monumental Amadoka, may appear to be a simple text at first glance. However, in reality, writing a simple text can often be much more difficult. What was the experience of creating Katanankhe in this sense?
That's true—creating a text that seems simple at first glance can actually be a more complex process than writing a large novel. When I was writing Katanankhe, I found that during the internal process of breaking down familiar life structures, my usual way of constructing sentences was also disrupted. Very detailed, artistically excessive descriptions began to seem absurd and unnatural. Instead, a new conciseness emerged, along with a new sense of precision, accuracy. A clear understanding of which word should be in a given place.
And that's how Katanankhe came about, when I already had the plot and envisioned the characters. I simply knew the sequence of scenes very clearly. All of this logic came to me almost at once, whereas in the case of Amadoka, it was a very long and convoluted process, with different parts of the novel appearing at random moments. With Katanankhe, there was absolute clarity and transparency, as well as a sense of fine-tuning for each word.
But at the same time, all of this was burdened with very complex emotions. The entire plot described in Katanankhe seems to be fantastical, not related to the experience of most people. But the trauma embedded in the mood of this story is very much in tune with what many people in Ukraine are feeling today. And perhaps that’s why this text may be difficult to perceive if a person is not ready to face reality, to acknowledge their own feelings, or the reality that is happening to all of us. But at the same time, I am aware that I couldn’t now write a story that would distract the reader from what is happening to us right now. On the contrary, Katanankhe turns the reader upside down and shows emotions that cannot be dealt with here and now, but which, at the same time, need to be acknowledged and understood.
Perhaps this is one of the ways to endure these dark times?
Absolutely. And this dilemma, around which the story is built, is about the fact that this incredible event is happening because we’ve been thrown into very wrong, traumatic circumstances. And we don’t know how to cope. And that’s why illogical events, actions, and behaviors occur. But at the same time, there is its own energy from which a new order can be rebuilt. It is also an opportunity to find a way to live through incredibly difficult experiences and emotions. I think art, in general, gives the possibility to distract oneself without actually distracting. On the contrary, it immerses you, helping you find a path for yourself.
Art is truly a unique space for conversations about things that are unclear, painful, but must be said.
Yes, and here’s something interesting. At some point, I realized that I had to write, because otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to endure everything that was happening. And this applies to many people, it’s our way of saving our (and not only our) psyche. I recently read an interview with Ukrainian writer Tanja Maljartschuk, who lives in Austria and does a lot of advocacy work for Ukraine, including starting a large-scale project to translate Ukrainian classics into German. With her vast experience in public speaking and media work, Tanja found an incredibly apt metaphor, in my opinion, about culture during war. She says that culture during war is like sitting under a blossoming tree at the moment when a rape is taking place there.
And I realized that this metaphor was created specifically for people from the West, who don’t have our experience of living through a great war. Because the responsibility of Western societies is, among other things, to be aware of what’s happening in the world. So they can influence their own government to ensure that Ukraine receives weapons for defense. Meanwhile, Ukrainian cultural professionals and intellectuals are still often invited to international events and discussions, whose real goal is simply to have a good time over a glass of wine. The gap between this and what these events mean for us (which is an attempt to find yet another way of saving ourselves and our country from destruction) is truly incredible.
How do you think, have we, after almost three years of full-scale war, reached some kind of turning point in terms of understanding the situation in Ukraine by the global world?
In my opinion, noticeable changes have occurred. Three years ago, people in the West mostly knew almost nothing about Ukraine, and their questions sounded terribly naive. Today, however, many people around the world have a more or less systematic understanding of Ukrainian literature, history, culture, etc. And that’s already a pretty good intermediate result.
However, these changes are clearly not enough. And over these almost three years, it’s become clear that we can have almost no influence on the deep-rooted love and romanticization of everything Russian in the Western world. This applies to most European countries, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So, we need to stop lamenting about this and instead invest our limited efforts where we can bring about real change.
Currently, most Europeans still believe that a familiar evil is better than the unknown. It’s a subconscious desire to preserve the status quo. Right now, they are living for today and are not ready for more serious changes. The Western world behaves like a frog in heating water: as long as the temperature is still comfortable, no one wants to think about risks and dangers. But unfortunately, this approach only brings true problems closer. That’s why we must continue our efforts in international advocacy for Ukraine. And perhaps, our understanding of the things we unite around in this war (for example, how we want to be perceived in the world) will help us become stronger and more active, and get through these dark times.
How do you build your public speeches and international presentations? What do you primarily try to convey to international audiences that you have the opportunity to speak to?
I do this very intuitively. I began our conversation by emphasizing subjectivity. And that’s how I speak to the audience. I am convinced that there must be very different ways to speak, very different views, experiences, etc. There is no one universal way to speak to Western audiences: for example, "let’s be very restrained and avoid emotions." We Ukrainians are often reproached for being too emotional and traumatized. But for me, it would be very painful to know that people who are starting to cry because of what they are going through are being forced to stop those tears.
And I also believe in personal presence. Today we spoke a lot about the established stereotypical image of the Russian, deeply rooted in the imagination of European societies, and how extremely difficult it is to change it. In contrast, there is no image of a Ukrainian that could serve as a counterpoint: who is he, what is he like? But we can create it. And not artificially, as the Russians did, but naturally, by showing up at important international events, speaking to representatives of Western societies, telling stories, reading our texts, sharing our experiences, and responding to questions. This is a long and difficult process, but this approach helps build strong connections and a better understanding of Ukraine among international audiences.
Interview by Anastasia Platonova; Translated by Kate Tsurkan; Photo of Sofia Andrukhovych by Mykhailo Krupievsky.
The article was first published in Ukrainian and Polish and came out of the collaboration between the IWM and the Polish online magazine Dwutygodnik.
Sofia Andrukhovych
Ukrainian writer and transaltor, co-editor of Chetver periodical. In December 2014, her novel Felix Austria won BBC Ukrainian's Book of the Year 2014 award which was followed by Ukrainian-Polish feature film Viddana by director Chrystyna Syvolap in 2020. In March 2021, she received the Women in Arts Award in literature. Sofia Andrukhovych is also a Documenting Ukraine grantee.
Anastasia Platonova
Cultural critic, journalist, editor, cultural analyst. Her specialization is criticism of contemporary visual culture and cultural policies. She has experience of cooperation with key Ukrainian cultural institutions and works as a lecturer and cultural expert.
