July 31
2:00 PM
Join us for our quarterly discussion of books with global themes on the fourth Sunday of January, April, July, and October at the Peoria Public Library North Branch. This summer, we selected two works of fiction that are certain to generate lively discussion!
The group has selected a couple of works of fiction for the summer read. They will certainly generate a lively discussion, and we hope you will join us in reading the selections and the discussion about them. Our two works of fiction are:
Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets (translated by Eugene Ostrashevsky), 2018. At just 109 pages, this book is a collection of short stories centering on the displaced women of the Donbas region of Ukraine. Belorusets, a Ukrainian writer, photographer and artist, uses these short stories of survival to offer insights into the lives of women, often overlooked in terms of those who suffer “battle scars” just as men on the front lines do, even if they are not physical scars.
Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov (translated by Boris Dralyuk), 2018. The author considers himself ethnically Russian, but “politically Ukrainian.” Through his story of a beekeeper’s mission to evacuate his hives from Ukraine’s Grey Zone (the land between the Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region), Kurkov takes readers on a journey of awakening of the differences between the Ukrainian and Russian mentalities. For some readers, Grey Bees will evoke memories of another Ukrainian writer, Nicholai Gogol. Join us to share your impressions!
