Starred review from October 23, 2023
In this resonant work of historical fiction, Ukrainian Canadian artist Cherkas (The Silent Invasion) ushers readers through the horrors of the Holodomor, the Soviet-driven famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s. Mykola, a Ukrainian immigrant in Ontario, is haunted by nightmares of the famine that wiped out his family. As he travels back to Ukraine for the first time, he shares memories of his childhood in a farming village thrown into chaos and poverty when Communist Party enforcers convert it to a collective farm system. “Whatever happened to ‘Peace, Land and Bread’?” Mykola’s father asks as mismanagement, corruption, and authoritarian cruelty drive the farms into ruin. Harvests are seized by the government and shipped to Russia, forcing the workers to forage in the woods, eat worms, and, at the worst extremes, resort to cannibalism. In loose, unpretentious lines, Cherkas draws vivid characters who radiate personality, and his scenes of rural Ukrainian life, traditions, food, and culture are well-researched and composed with affection. Cherkas brilliantly encompasses the scope of a genocide in an emotionally gripping human story.