Looking at Women, Looking at War

The book’s posthumously assembled fragments leave a powerful afterimage. Its unfinished state is often seen as sharpening both the urgency and the honesty of the work.

war in Ukrainetestimonywomenwar crimesfragmentary record

Amazon Rakuten Yahoo!

Work Information

An unfinished record that confronts war in the present tense.

A nonfiction work built from the author’s observations of women and the documentation of war crimes under Russia’s invasion. Posthumously edited notes, testimony, and fragments make the reality of war feel immediate.

Review Summaries

Readers praise the way the assembled fragments convey both wartime chaos and personal memory. Many feel that the lack of closure itself communicates the severity of reality.

Book Information

Publisher: William Collins
Published: 2025-02-13
Pages: 320 pages
Language: 英語
Size: 15.9 x 3.3 x 24 cm
ISBN-13: 9780008727505
ISBN-10: 0008727503
Price: 4690 JPY
Category: 洋書/History/Europe/Ukraine

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE WITH A FOREWORD FROM MARGARET ATWOOD 'This book would always have been important evidence that the Ukraine people were suffering criminal attack. Written by a poet, it is also a work of literature, published after the author lost her life doing her research. It is an icon of a young woman’s heroism' Philippa Gregory Destined to be a classic, a poet's powerful look at the courage of resistance. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country's literary scene, and parenting her son. Then she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These heroines include Evgenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children's book author. Everyone in Ukraine knew that Amelina was documenting the war. She photographed the ruins of schools and cultural centers; she recorded the testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses to atrocities. And she slowly turned back into a storyteller, writing what would become this book. On the evening of June 27th, 2023, Amelina and three international writers stopped for dinner in the embattled Donetsk region. Whena Russian cruise missile hit the restaurant, Amelina suffered grievous head injuries, and lost consciousness. She died on July 1st. She was thirty-seven. She left behind an incredible account of the ravages of war and the cost of resistance. Honest, intimate, and wry, this book will be celebrated as a classic.

Victoria Amelina was killed by a Russian missile in July, 2023. She was an award-winning Ukrainian novelist, essayist, poet, and human rights activist whose prose and poems have been translated into many languages. In 2019/2020 she lived and traveled extensively in the US. She wrote both in Ukrainian and English, and her essays have appeared in Irish Times , Dublin Review of Books , and Eurozine .

Reviews

No fiction would make me cry more than this did

I cried reading this. Peace and Justice for Ukraine.
What a brave woman So admirable
Looking at Women, Looking at War by Victoria Amelina is a haunting, posthumous diary of the Ukrainian resistance. Before she was tragically killed in a Russian missile strike, Amelina transitioned from novelist to war crimes researcher, documenting the lives of women—librarians, soldiers, and activists—refusing to be silenced. #VictoriaAmelina #Ukraine #LookingAtWomenLookingAtWar #NewReads #Justice ForVictoria
Heroic and a warning. Also, a brilliant piece of editing.
I read every page barely breathing. Victoria Amelina’s words cut deep — her reflections on each woman, their stories, their pain, her own thoughts — they stay with you. I feel a responsibility to remember every detail, so I never become numb to the truth: Russia is a terrorist state. We lost one of Ukraine’s brightest literary voices far too soon. Her final book is a powerful, unforgettable tribute to resilience and truth. I highly recommend it. Read it. Remember it.
This book is a must read. Her story is so incredibly sad. I bought another copy for a friend and he liked it very much. Remember her and give her a voice by buying the book and reading it.