Irene Zabytko is the author of the new novel The Days of Miracle and Wonder. Her other books include The Sky Unwashed.
Q: What inspired you to write The Days of Miracle and Wonder?
A: My fiction is always based on Ukrainian themes. I’ve written a novel about the villagers who return to their homes in Chornobyl (Ukrainian transliteration), and a collection of short stories based on my Ukrainian neighborhood in Chicago.
For The Days of Miracle and Wonder, I wanted to write about the post-Soviet days when Ukraine became independent and yet still unsure of how to navigate nation-building while dealing with economic and political uncertainties while reclaiming their cultural identity apart from Russia or the Soviet Union.
I witnessed much of this when I was in Ukraine in 1992 as a volunteer teaching English to Ukrainians. For most of my students, I was their first live American. It was also the year where I also took a very long bus ride to the Carpathians, which was inspiration for some of the scenes in the book.
Q: How would you describe the book’s relationship to The Canterbury Tales?
A: The structure is similar in that the travelers in my book are on a pilgrimage to witness the site of a miracle in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, although not everyone on the bus ride is religious. My characters are identified by their professions, again similar to Chaucer’s.
I always admired how he structured his Tales by exhibiting a group of people collectively thrown together to share stories along with their comments about the stories (and of each other) in between the storytelling. I thought that was genius when I first read The Canterbury Tales.
But my stories take place at a different historical time period and in a different country and so the concerns and issues of my characters don’t resemble Chaucer’s. And also unlike Chaucer, I didn’t write in verse. That was beyond my writing skills.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: It’s a line taken from the Paul Simon song “The Boy in the Bubble.” I always thought it was both hopeful and cynical especially if you listen closely to his song lyrics. And I thought it was appropriate in regard to the stories my characters share. They’ve lived through so much history which they view in both those ways.
Q: The author Helen Fremont said of you and the book, “Through her characters’ stories, she reveals in striking detail the harsh reality of life in Ukraine over the past half century...” What do you think of that assessment?
A: It’s accurate. Look at what’s happening in Ukraine now with Russia’s brutal, unnecessary war. Russians are killing and displacing Ukrainians, stealing their children, torturing civilians and POWs and terrorizing cities and villages with thousands of missiles and drones that are attacking Ukraine.
If you go further back in Ukraine’s history, and not the usual Russo-centric versions, you can understand what Ukraine has been through: the Holodomor (Famine of 1932-33), the nuclear disaster at Chornobyl, the murders of The Heavenly Hundred who were the protesting martyrs during the Revolution of Dignity, the Soviet Dissidents who were mostly writers and other intellectuals sent to gulags and psychiatric prisons.
This is Russia’s persistent genocide even during tsarist times that has been inflicted deliberately on Ukraine long before the current war in trying to annihilate the Ukrainian people and their culture, history, and autonomy.
But it’s also what makes Ukrainians stronger and more determined to be Ukrainian on their own terms.
Again, let’s look at this war that started on February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine—actually another invasion because they criminally claimed parts of the Donbas and annexed Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine was fighting them since that time.
But when the “full scale operation” as Russia called it, occurred in 2022, everyone, even President Biden, thought that Russia would walk in and take over Kyiv and all of Ukraine in three days.
The war is now going on for five long years, and Russia barely captured a few kilometers while bombing and destroying hospitals, orphanages, schools, cafes, apartments, and other civilian targets—which the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not do in retaliation on Russian civilians.
Because of the war, the brilliant brave Ukrainians had to adapt to new warfare methods, and now Ukraine is the number one innovator of drone warfare and robotics for frontline combat.
Ukrainians are not going to go away or give up especially to Russian brutality, and they will fight for their country. And their resilience and bravery are also what I wanted to emphasize in this book.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m writing a ghost story, and it takes place in many parts of the world. A big section will occur in current wartime Ukraine. Lots of ghosts there still, unfortunately.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The Days of Miracle and Wonder is about Ukrainians in Ukraine, but it’s also a universal book about humans making sense of an illogical, bewildering government system they were forced under while trying to maintain their humanity, sanity, dignity, and yes, humor too. The themes are universal and I believe very relevant for our times.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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