Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina

Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina was a book I wanted so much to read. It was published in UK in mid-February, just as I returned from Lviv. The author was born in Lviv and she was a crime researcher killed by the russians in 2023. Read about her at the end of the post, because I want to focus on her book in the review.

Why I wanted to read her story? Because Victoria discovered the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a Ukrainian writer killed by russia in 2022, then she was killed by russia in July 2023, then the publishing house in Kharkiv that was supposed to publish her diary in Ukrainian was hit in May 2024. She knew, as it is clear from her book, that the russians are waging a genocidal war against Ukraine and that they are trying to silence all of them: Volodymyr, Victoria, all Ukrainian culture.

In the blurb is mentioned that this is a classic and I agree. She was a very talented writer and the parts of the book she managed to finish before being killed are really interesting, engaging, with beautiful descriptions, not too long and vivid. It tells her story, from returning to Ukraine as she was on a holiday in Egypt with her son when the russian bombs started falling down Ukrainian cities at 4 or 5 am.

In this book she wanted to tell the stories of the women who were looking at war, like the one who protected Ukraine’s past by evacuating precious artefacts by train, so they don’t fall in russian hands or destroyed by russian bombs. She talked about a soldier who was a lawyer before Feb 2022, about Oleksandra the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and about the librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children’s book author, mentioned above, Volodymyr Vakylenko.

The book was unfinished. There are chapters that are complete, some that are only partially complete. The editors did an amazing job by respecting her work. The unfinished parts are clearly marked, both by using different fonts for passages from other sources that she wanted to include in her book and also by using a dark gray for her notes. I loved the book. It was hard to read, as I remember some of the people who she is talking about and I remember some of the attacks, vividly. For those who can’t put a face to a name without searching, the book will be just as interesting.
Do read her book. Don’t let the aggressors silence her.

Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina

Details about the picture: the mug is from Lviv, Ukraine, and the candle is made my a Ukrainian artist, in the Ukrainian colours
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: YES!
Published by: St. Martin’s Press
Year it was published: February 2025
Format: Hardcover
Genre(s): Memoir
Pages: 320

About the author: Victoria Yuriivna Amelina was a Ukrainian novelist and a member of PEN International. She was the author of two novels and a children’s book, a winner of the Joseph Conrad Literary Award and a European Union Prize for Literature finalist.
Victoria was born in Lviv in 1986. She emigrated to Canada with her family at the age of fourteen, then returned to Ukraine soon after. After completing a degree in computer science in Lviv, Victoria started her career in IT before becoming a full-time writer and poet in 2015.
From 2015, when her first book The Fall Syndrome: about Homo Compatiens was published, she dedicated her time solely to writing. Her debut novel deals with the events at Maidan in 2014. In 2016, Victoria published a book for children called Somebody, or Water Heart. In 2017, she published a novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom about a family of a Soviet colonel who in the 1990s lived in the former childhood apartment in Lviv of the Polish Jewish author Stanisław Lem.
After the full-scale invasion started, she worked as a war crimes researcher. In September 2022, while doing research in the Izium region, she uncovered the war diary of fellow Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who had been killed by the occupying forces.
On 27 June 2023, Victoria was injured by the Iskander missile the russians used to attack the pizzeria in Kramatorsk where she was having a meal with friends. She died due to her injuries on 1 July in Dnipro, aged 37.
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