Arabesques
New Stories
Original Ukrainian title: Арабески, published in 2024 by Meridian Czernowitz | Literal translation of the German title: No One Will Ask for Anything
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Yale UP), France (Noir sur Blanc), Netherlands (De Geus), Sweden (Ersatz), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Finland (Sammakko), Poland (Czarne), Romania (Cartier)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Radio Reading (MDR / NDR)
Arabesques / Keiner wird um etwas bitten
New Stories
Original Ukrainian title: Арабески, published in 2024 by Meridian Czernowitz | Literal translation of the German title: No One Will Ask for Anything
Ukraine’s most prominent author creates searing snapshots of life in a war-torn city
»The trams haven’t been running since February.« Time and again, we encounter moments of calm in this city haunted by the spectre of war. People meet up in places that are still more or less intact: at the football field, in the church, in a sun-drenched office in a high-rise building. Readers of Zhadan’s work will recognise characters from Mesopotamia and The Orphanage, people of whom you were never quite sure what they actually did. Are they musicians, unemployed...
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»The trams haven’t been running since February.« Time and again, we encounter moments of calm in this city haunted by the spectre of war. People meet up in places that are still more or less intact: at the football field, in the church, in a sun-drenched office in a high-rise building. Readers of Zhadan’s work will recognise characters from Mesopotamia and The Orphanage, people of whom you were never quite sure what they actually did. Are they musicians, unemployed teachers, advertising professionals, mechanics, or some kind of expert or consultant?
Now, though, they all have utterly different concerns: evacuating an old woman after the bombardment of a residential area; finding a job for someone who came back from the front with significant disabilities; or attending the funeral of a dead colleague who had led a combat unit on the frontlines.
Each of these stories leaves a profound and lasting impression. Zhadan finds ways to express the vulnerability felt by the inhabitants of this city, and the radical changes to everyday life in a society that has come to accept that death is lurking around every corner, in every building, on every square.
»Zhadan’s stories show that freedom and dignity are not abstract, but concrete.« Joseph Wälzholz, WELT AM SONNTAG
»... Anybody who has read Zhadan’s stories can at least get a rough idea of how much it would mean to the people in Ukraine to no longer have to live in fear.« Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»[A] melancholic cycle of literarily sculpted and carefully composed stories that are variously connected with one another through characters, motifs, and thematic references. … [Nevertheless, the collection] is marked by a laconic narrative tone, shot through here and there with caustic humour.« Sigrid Löffler, Berliner Zeitung
»These stories appear unadorned and simple, their language is austere. But flashbacks and reflections are deployed with great precision, there is not a single superfluous word, the conversations are strictly related to the topic and to the present. … And then we do find hope in this book, despite everything, a book that is clever and highly human without descending into melodrama.« Jörg Plath, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»If you’ve read even just one of these stories, you won’t forget it any time soon.« Der Tagesspiegel
»In their simplicity, Serhij Zhadan’s stories achieve an almost Shakespearean monumentality, replacing a large portion of what has been written about the war in Ukraine. And they are the proof that art is still possible in times of war, indeed, it is necessary.« Erich Klein, Falter
»Zhadan’s storytelling is direct, uncomplicated, he sticks close to his characters, and so do we [as readers]. … Precisely because he recounts so calmly of loss, death, and pain, [he] hits us right in the heart. … Everyone should read this book.« NDR Kultur
»... Anybody who has read Zhadan’s stories can at least get a rough idea of how much it would mean to the people in Ukraine to no longer have to live in fear.« Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»[A] melancholic cycle of literarily sculpted and carefully composed stories that are variously connected with one another through characters, motifs, and thematic references. … [Nevertheless, the collection] is marked by a laconic narrative tone, shot through here and there with caustic humour.« Sigrid Löffler, Berliner Zeitung
»These stories appear unadorned and simple, their language is austere. But flashbacks and reflections are deployed with great precision, there is not a single superfluous word, the conversations are strictly related to the topic and to the present. … And then we do find hope in this book, despite everything, a book that is clever and highly human without descending into melodrama.« Jörg Plath, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»If you’ve read even just one of these stories, you won’t forget it any time soon.« Der Tagesspiegel
»In their simplicity, Serhij Zhadan’s stories achieve an almost Shakespearean monumentality, replacing a large portion of what has been written about the war in Ukraine. And they are the proof that art is still possible in times of war, indeed, it is necessary.« Erich Klein, Falter
»Zhadan’s storytelling is direct, uncomplicated, he sticks close to his characters, and so do we [as readers]. … Precisely because he recounts so calmly of loss, death, and pain, [he] hits us right in the heart. … Everyone should read this book.« NDR Kultur
»Zhadan’s stories show that freedom and dignity are not abstract, but concrete.« Joseph Wälzholz, WELT AM SONNTAG
»... Anybody who has read Zhadan’s stories can at least get a rough idea of how much it would mean to the people in Ukraine to no longer have to live in fear.« Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»[A] melancholic cycle of literarily sculpted and carefully composed stories that are variously connected with one another through...
»... Anybody who has read Zhadan’s stories can at least get a rough idea of how much it would mean to the people in Ukraine to no longer have to live in fear.« Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»[A] melancholic cycle of literarily sculpted and carefully composed stories that are variously connected with one another through...
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2025, 165 pages
Persons
Serhij Zhadan
Author
Serhiy Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in 1974 and studied German at Kharkiv University. He has been one of the most influential figures in the Kharkiv scene since the early 1990s. He made his literary debut at 17 and has published numerous volumes of poetry and prose. He was awarded the Jan Michalski Prize and the Brücke Berlin Prize (together with translators Juri Durkot und Sabine Stöhr) for Ворошиловград. BBC Ukraine named Ворошиловград the Book of the Decade. In 2022, Zhadan was named Man of the Year by Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) and awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his »outstanding artistic work and his humanitarian stance with which he turns to the people suffering from war and...
Serhij Zhadan
Author
Serhiy Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in 1974 and studied German at Kharkiv University. He has been one of the...
© Ekko von Schwichow
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2025
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2025
Cease-Fire
Death brings everyone together: while their deceased mother is lying upstairs in the bedroom, in the kitchen, two brothers see each other for the first time in a long time. Anton, the older of the two, has headed off in search of greener pastures. Tolik, the younger brother, has stayed behind, despite the smouldering war and the increasingly precarious conditions. But now the bridge has been...
Year of Publication: 2024
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2024
Chronicle of My Own Breath
It was supposed to be another anthology, writes Serhiy Zhadan, about the eastern landscape in the winter, the approaching snow, the voices in the air, the vineyards, the city on the horizon filling...
Rights sold to:
Poland (Literackie)
Year of Publication: 2022
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2022
Sky Above Kharkiv
This volume contains a selection of texts that Serhiy Zhadan has been publishing on Facebook since the start of the war on February 24, 2022.
He doesn’t have time to keep a diary....
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Yale UP), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak)
Year of Publication: 2020
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2020
Antenna
What can literature do, what should it do, when there is war? What language do the poets resort to? Are their instruments suited to express »what causes fear«? Since the battles in...
Rights sold to:
Sweden (Fri Tanke), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (Wrocławski Dom Literatury), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor), Bulgaria (Paradox)
Year of Publication: 2017
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2017
The Orphanage
A young teacher plans on bringing his 13-year-old nephew home from the boarding school at the other end of town. The school, in which his working sister has »parked« her son, has come...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Yale UP), English Audiobook (Blackstone), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Catalan rights (Quaderns Crema), Portuguese rights (Elsinore), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Netherlands (de Geus), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Pax), Finland (Sammakko), Japan (Bulrush), Poland (Czarne), Czech Republic (Argo), Czech Audiobook (OneHotBook), Slovak Republic (Absynt), Hungary (Magvetö), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Estonia (Hea Lugu), Latvia (Janis Roze), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Croatia (Edicije Božičević), Slovenia (Beletrina), Greece (Dioptra), North Macedonia (Matica), Belarus (Januškevič), Georgia (Intelekti), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Lindhardt & Ringhof / Saga Egmont)
Year of Publication: 2016
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2016
Why I Am Not Online
»It’s tough to see history being made.« Since the summer of 2014, Serhiy Zhadan notes down his experiences on his journeys into the eastern Ukrainian war zone. They are poetic...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (selection; PIW), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)
Year of Publication: 2014
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2014
Mesopotamia
The setting of Serhiy Zhadan’s latest book is the Eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, here and now, a modern Babylon: a city in Mesopotamia, set at the riverbank of diverse languages and...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Yale UP), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Pax), Poland (Czarne), Hungary (Magvető), Latvia (Janis Roze), Belorussia (Januskevic), Georgia (Intelekti)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Schall & Wahn)
Year of Publication: 2010
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2010
Voroshilovgrad
In expressive prose, Zhadan delivers a road novel from the edge of Europe that dares to dream the dream of freedom in a completely new way: as the search for home in a world without...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Deep Vellum), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Russia (Astrel), Portuguese rights (Elsinore), Arabic world rights (Here&There), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Netherlands (De Geus), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Poland (Czarne), Poland Graphic Novel (Artur Wabik), Czech Republic (Argo), Slovak Republic (Dajama), Bulgaria (Paradox), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Latvia (Janis Roze), Croatia (Edicije Božičević), Slovenia (Beletrina), Belarus (Logvinau), Georgia (Intelekti)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Hungary (Europa)
Year of Publication: 2006
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2006
Democratic Youth Anthem
San Sanytsch, a wrestler with a highschool diploma, joins the »Boxers for Justice and Social Adaptation« who form a brigade of security guards controlling the markets near the tractor...
Rights sold to:
Russia (Amphora), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak), Bulgaria (Paradox)
Year of Publication: 2005
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2005
Anarchy in the UKR
»Forget politics, don't read the papers, don't go online, deny them your voice« – thus begins the »Leftist March«, a chapter of Serhiy Zhadan's...
Rights sold to:
France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Sweden (Bonniers), Norway (Pax), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Belarus (Skaryna Press)
Year of Publication: 2004
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2004
Depeche Mode
»A poet and novelist whose work has been variously compared to Rimbaud, Charles Bukowski and Irvine Welsh, Serhiy Zhadan’s first novel Depeche Mode depicts Ukrainian youth during...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Glagoslav), Russia (Amphora), Italy (Castelvecchi), Sweden (2244/Bonniers), Poland (Czarne), Czech Republic (Éditions Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Paradox), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Estonia (Loomingu Raamatukogu), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Greece (Dioptra)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Schall & Wahn)
Year of Publication: 2003
Serhij ZhadanYear of Publication: 2003
The History of Culture at the Beginning of the Century
Only in an environment in which anachronistic industrial plants sit in the landscape like dinosaurs, rotting away as the last witnesses of the grandiose Soviet experiment, could the...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Russia (Agorisk), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)
