Modern Animal

Since 2014, Yevgenia Belorusets has been the essential, 'pivotal' chronicler of the war in Eastern Ukraine. While the world's attention has fluctuated, Belorusets has remained, documenting the slow, surreal fragmentation of reality in the Donbas. Modern Animal is the culmination of this immense project: a collection of 'lectures' that approach the catastrophe of war obliquely, bypassing the numbing language of news reports to find the raw texture of survival in the eyes of the animals who witness it. Moving between the bombed-out villages and gray zones where the rules of civilization have dissolved, Belorusets subverts the Soviet-style lecture format- once a tool of state authority-into a medium for folklore, absurdity, and profound philosophical inquiry. Translated by a 'dream team' of award-winning translators -Damion Searls, Bela Shayevich, and Val Vinokur-and illustrated with the author's own stark, black-and-white photography, this book asserts that to understand the modern experience of war, we must look not at the generals, but at the delicate, shattered continuities of daily life.