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Signals of Being, or Verbum Caro Factum Est
A Play in Three Acts
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Brief Description
In the early days of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the residents of a small co-op community outside of Kyiv find themselves in increasingly desperate circumstances, surrounded by occupying Russian forces. Pinched between Bucha and Borodianka, cut off from aid, and unable to escape, their attempts...
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Format: Paperback / softback
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See moreVolodymyr Rafeyenko’s Signals of Being: A Play in Three Acts stages a captivating dramatic interpretation of a country at war today. Set in the early days of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, residents of a small community outside Kyiv rely on connection to survive as they are cut off from aid and unable to escape.
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Description
In the early days of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the residents of a small co-op community outside of Kyiv find themselves in increasingly desperate circumstances, surrounded by occupying Russian forces. Pinched between Bucha and Borodianka, cut off from aid, and unable to escape, their attempts at survival rely on connection: a cellphone signal in the forest, their bonds with each other, and, ultimately, new understandings of what it means to be Ukrainian.
Weaving Shakespeare with both Ukrainian literary classics and contemporary works, Volodymyr Rafeyenko's Signals of Being stages a captivating dramatic interpretation of a country at war.
Series: Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature
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A mondegreen is something that is heard improperly by someone who then clings to that misinterpretation as fact. Fittingly, Volodymyr Rafeyenko's novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love explores the ways that memory and language construct our identity, and how we hold on to it no matter what. The novel tells the story of Haba Habinsky, a refugee from Ukraine's...Paperback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780674302662
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 11 November 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Contributors:
- Translated by Mark Andryczyk
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 127.0mm
Height: 203.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 156
About the Author
Volodymyr Rafeyenko is an award-winning Ukrainian writer, poet, translator, and literary and film critic. Although he initially wrote and published in Russian, his novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love was his first written in Ukrainian. It was nominated for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine’s highest award in arts and culture. Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Volodymyr Korolenko Prize for the novel Brief Farewell Book and the Visegrad Eastern Partnership Literary Award for the novel The Length of Days. Mark Andryczyk teaches Ukrainian literature and is Associate Research Scholar in the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction and has published translations of numerous Ukrainian poets and writers.
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Mondegreen
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The Length of Days
The Length of Days features a wild cast of characters—Lithuanian, Russian, and Ukrainian—and cameo appearances by Rosa Luxemburg, Amy Winehouse, and others. Embedded narratives attributed to one character, an alcoholic chemist-turned-massage-therapist, broaden the reader's view of the funny, ironic, or tragic lives of people who remained in the ill-fated Donbas after Russia's initial aggression in 2014. Unexpected allies emerge to...Paperback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks
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