Writing War: Conversation with Myroslav Laiuk about his book Bakhmut

Join us for a conversation with Myroslav Laiuk, Ukrainian writer, war reporter, and lecturer at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Laiuk is the author of Bakhmut (2023) and The Lists (2025), two acclaimed books of wartime reportage. Bakhmut received Ukraine’s Yurii Shevelov Prize and was shortlisted for the BBC Ukraine Book of the Year and Canada’s Peterson Prize.

About the book

It’s a story about an anti-aircraft gunner who has just shot down a Russian fighter jet; a father and sons fighting side by side; and a member of Wagner who cherishes Nabokov. It’s a journey to places where dogs feast on the dead, where you are petrified by fear and desolation yet also stunned by courage, resilience and even love.

There, you see everything with a clarity as sharp as that from new spectacles. This vividness begs a question: is there room for nuance? Or is the pursuit of nuance merely the privilege of those who don’t fight for their very life and existence here and now? And are survivors themselves obliged to pursue this nuance?

In his stories, Laiuk employs the method of fixation — “photographing” through text. The word fixation takes on different meanings throughout the book.

More about the book: https://store.ukrainer.net/en/product/book-bakhmut/

About the Author

Myroslav Laiuk was born on 31 July 1990 in the Carpathians and now resides in Kyiv, Ukraine. He holds a PhD in philosophy and literature, and lectures at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. As a war documentarian, he works on the frontline and in de-occupied territories. His texts and essays from Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions have been published in Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech and US media, including Gazeta Wyborcza, Eurozine, LitHub, Reporters, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

His poems and prose in English translation have appeared in The Dial, The New Statesman, Agenda, Common Knowledge, and Poetry International. Laiuk is the author of three novels and three poetry books, with his works translated and published in Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Belarus. In 2018, KyivPost recognised him among its Top 30 Under 30, naming him one of Ukraine’s most innovative young figures.

“Blending a poet’s skill with committed war reporting, Myroslav Laiuk illuminates the details, images, personalities of war the way only a poet can. He re-discovers Ukraine for the reader, making the neglected loved.”
— Peter Pomerantsev, British journalist and writer, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible and This Is Not Propaganda

“Each participant in the war forges their own path. Frequently, these paths are off-road, marred by potholes and rough asphalt. Myroslav has succeeded in gathering and conveying the profound anguish embedded in the stories of each of his characters. It is through books like this that entire generations will come to understand the monumental struggles of the Ukrainian armed forces.”
— Evgeniy Maloletka, Associated Press photojournalist, Pulitzer Prize winner