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million people internally displaced (the current invasion has now caused 14 million to flee their homes, with 6. Even though Sergeyich is treated well by the Tatar community as well as officials and local authorities, there is always this anxious atmosphere as he never knows how the ones in the power or from the other communities will react to him – a man from Grey Zone.
Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. Her biography of Robert Walser, Clairvoyant of the Small, was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Gerade für eine Person wie mich, die sich nie zuvor mit der Ukraine beschäftigt hat und diesen Krieg, der nun in der gesamten Ukraine herrscht, überhaupt nicht versteht, war dieser Roman genau die richtige Lektüre. As you know Vishy, I became aware of this title because it was on the longlist of the Dublin Literary Award, and the library even share something of the author’s inspiration as he heard about this grey zone and began to visit it. Sergey’s once-thriving village’s now virtually abandoned, littered with bombed-out buildings, the sounds of shelling dominating the surrounding landscape.The bees are a nice touch too—not too front and center, but the low-level care and attention they need the kind of obligation that helps keeps Sergeyich focused. Sergeyich is approaching fifty; he's been on a disability pension since he was forty-two, after working as a safety inspector in mines, but he's in reasonably good shape.
It’s also a useful reminder to those only just awakening to the situation in Ukraine that the war’s not a recent development but an escalation of a conflict that’s blighted the lives of many of its people for years, destroying and displacing deep-rooted communities. I had to strain at first not to lose sight of the beekeeper, not to mix him up with his rival, but then I read further to the next scene. The sense of nationhood and internal mistrust pervade the lives of all the characters he meets and come to infect one of his three precious hives.Putin’s calculation is simple: a Ukraine with a permanent war in its eastern region will never be fully welcomed by Europe or the rest of the world.
This is a very timely novel, and one that taught me a lot about the background to the current conflict as well as some cultural history, but also it is just a really engaging read. In addition, Grey Bees explores the importance of human connections, mutual understanding and cultural as well as ethnic diversity. Favourite thing I learnt: That there are such things as bee beds—beds made over hives on which people lie down/sleep as bees’ vibrations have healing properties.Sergeyich did not like Pashka since their school years, but the situation has forced them to establish some sort of relationship. It was almost noon, high time to head back to the house, but that spot on the field, on the rising slope towards Zhdanivka and the Ukrainian trenches, puzzled Sergeyich and would not let him go. Sergeyich even still has a car, and eventually he decides to head for Crimea -- the part of Ukraine illegally (re)appropriated by Russia in 2014 -- as a sort of outing for his bees and also to try to reconnect with Akhtem, who had been Sergeyich's roommate at a beekeepers' conference a quarter of a century earlier. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole.
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