The translation is decent, the pacing makes for a very compelling read, and the themes are easy for the audience to grasp without ever seeming condescending.

My main issue with this book is that the protagonist is a creep towards women.

Bez przesady stwierdzam, że to, co napisał w tej książce Zhadan, to kawał wielkiej literatury, być może największej, jaką napisano w tej części Europy w ostatniej dekadzie. Książka jest fantastyczna. Czterysta stron naładowanych pięknymi metaforami, a o tym, jak autor pisze o powietrzu, tlenie i oddychaniu, można by pewnie napisać oddzielną rozprawę. Woroszyłowgrad to powieść inicjacyjna o Ukrainie, o dojrzewaniu i o piłce nożnej. Brutalny realizm miesza się z onirycznymi, narkotycznymi wizjami. Anioły piją gruzińskie wina, a rozgrywki piłkarskie są jak średniowieczne rycerskie batalie. Wszystko to przypomina raz komiks, raz poezję, a za chwilę ciężki, realistyczny reportaż z postsowieckiej rozpierduchy. A tak w ogóle to chodzi o to, jak zarządzać stacją benzynową.

I picked this book up from Deep Vellum at the 2017 Texas Book Festival. I won’t lie: This was a bit of a slog in parts and the version I have had a couple of serious editing issues. But this book has become Ukraine for me, filled with conflict, corruption, and whatever it takes to survive. I am deeply grateful to Zhadan, the translators, and Deep Vellum for that. The book has some exquisite writing and the evocation of environment is masterful.
(The book was translated from the Ukrainian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler and Reilly Costigan-Humes. Always give credit to translators. It's a hard job!)

The novel Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan was dubbed “Trainspotting set against a grim post-Soviet backdrop” by Newsweek. Having read this tag and with a recommendations from Agnese from Beyond the Epilogue, I knew I had to read this one. It revolves around Herman, who finds himself managing his brother’s gas station, after he mysteriously disappeared. Though it is a story of a bleak industrial city as it is a story of Herman.

Voroshilovgrad is a fascinating exploration into a post-soviet Ukraine. Not only does it explore the effects of communism to an industrial city, but also the power vacuum left behind when the Soviet Union collapsed. The mystery of what happened to Yuri takes a backseat as the novel explores the lives of Herman and his employees Kocha and Injured as they go head to head with a gangster who wants to control the gas station.

This is an interesting novel that appears to blend elements of post-modernism with the writers of the Beat generation, with a splash of Hunter S. Thompson. Serhiy Zhadan himself is a novelist, a poet and a translator. He mainly translates poetry from German, English, Belarusian and Russian but has translated Charles Bukowski into Ukrainian. This knowledge helps understand his influences, and while I still maintain that Voroshilovgrad reminds me of the Beats, I can see some Bukowski coming through.

While Voroshilovgrad was an entertaining insight into a post-Soviet city, I do not think there is many more themes to pull from this novel. I think it explored this idea really well and while I would have loved something deeper, I cannot fault the novel at all. I typically read books in translation to understand a different time and place, and Voroshilovgrad was able to do this perfectly. I love the dark and gritty nature of this novel, and I plan to re-read Voroshilovgrad in the future.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/book-reviews/genre/contemporary/voroshilovgrad-serhiy-zhadan/