Sweet Darusya

Sweet Darusya / Maria Matios
trans. from the Ukrainian by Michael Naydan & Olha Tytarenko
read by Allyson Voller
Old Saybrook, CT: Tantor Audio, 2022, c2003.

This is an historical novel by an author from Western Ukraine, who has written many award-winning books and also serves as a member of parliament. This book has received high praise, and has now been published in English both in hard copy and as an audiobook. I found the audiobook in my library, and I liked it, although I did find there were a couple of odd choices in the narration. Primarily that the narrator puts on an accent when the characters are speaking, which is a bit distracting. The characters are speaking their own language to one another, they're not speaking English, so why do they have a funny accent? I've found this habit in a couple of translated audiobooks, from different languages, and wish they would just read everything straight. We know they're speaking their own language, we don't need accents. 

Aside from that production note, this book was astounding to me. It's set in a small village on a river, across from a similar village on the other side, which is in a different country. This was fairly common as borders continually shifted; there's the old joke about a grandmother who lived in three different countries in her lifetime but never left her village. This is in the Carpathians, and the villages are populated by local Hutsuls. However, the villages are continually under the control of others, Romanians, Poles, Germans, Soviets, and they are all abusive - the villagers just want to live in peace but that's not their reality. And for the women in the story, peace is elusive at home as well as societally.

Sweet Darusya is our main character; she's called "Sweet" because she's not all there mentally. She's mute, and doesn't live like others do. We don't know at the beginning of the book whether this has always been the case, but as the story unspools we find out why. The book is set up in reverse chronological order; it starts in the 60s with Darusya herself, and moves back to the 40s as we learn more about her parents and their experiences. This allows the reader to look backwards as well, and see the links between trauma through the generations, and the behaviours it engenders.

It's not an easy story; the history that it covers is dark and violent, but what I found very striking is that some of it could be a report from the war today, even though it's taking place over the 1940s-60s. There are dark moments of terror when the occupying soldiers torture and kill villagers, and these moments are not skimmed over, so do be prepared for some horrific elements. 

The terrible things that seem to randomly happen to these villagers just keep coming. When we find out the full story of Darusya's affliction, it's a heartbreaking explanation. The book is a condemnation of war and how it destroys families and lives for nothing, and creates trauma that continues down the generations. If you want to understand some of the history behind the country, this is well worth reading.

If you read this rather than listen to it, you'll also find a lot of footnotes explaining the context of the story, with historical background. But it's been noted by a few readers that this translation is distracting for it's lack of smooth transition into English. Unfortunately I find this is usual for this translator, but the story is still very important and powerful, if you can overlook some clunky language. You will learn a lot about the past and the underpinning of what's happening today.