Description:
In The God of Freedom, Yuliya Musakovska reveals, facet by facet, the landscape of a turbulent Ukraine. Vibrant, relevant, and masterful, this book of poems in translation is full of profound insights and captivating eloquence.
Brief description: Yuliya Musakovska is an award-winning Ukrainian poet and translator. She was born in 1982 in Lviv, Ukraine. She has published five poetry collections in Ukrainian, among them Hunting for Silence (2014), Men, Women, and Children (2015), and The God of Freedom (2021) shortlisted for the Lviv UNESCO City of Literature Prize and nominated for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize. She received many literary awards in Ukraine, including the Smoloskyp Prize for Poetry (2010). Her work has been translated into over thirty languages and widely published around the globe. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, AGNI, Tupelo Quarterly, NELLE, The Common, and other journals.
Review Quotes:
The poems in The God of Freedom rebuke and question, introduce and preserve one of the darkest moments in modern European and global history. Simple images of "wet, clipped fields" transform into "rebellious girls," and an innocent speaker emerges as "wind that got caught in striped stocking." Musakovska's verses hold an entire nation's historical and current burdens during which each individual is fighting for survival and the right to exist. Dense and surreal, The God of Freedom is a collection readers will not forget.
Nicole Yurcaba, The Los Angeles Review