“Sweet Darusya: A Tale of Two Villages,” by Maria Matios; Michael Naydan and Olha Tytarenko (translators). New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2019. 224 pp. ISBN: 9781947980938. $16.
A new and dynamic translation of prominent Ukrainian writer Maria Matios’s novel “Sweet Darusya” has been released by Spuyten Duyvil of New York. The work – described by writer Andrei Kurkov as “the best contemporary Ukrainian novel written since Ukrainian Independence in 1991” – has been translated by Michael Naydan and Olha Tytarenko.
Ms. Matios’s internationally acclaimed novel – whose narrative design includes an intriguing reverse chronological structure – recounts the story of a Ukrainian family from the 1960s back to the 1930s. Set in the village of Cheremoshne, which was successively occupied by Romanian, Polish, Nazi and Soviet authorities, “Sweet Darusya” portrays the everyday lives, loves, and trauma of “sweet” Darusya, her spiritual love Ivan Tsvychok, Darusya’s father and mother, and the inhabitants of their isolated village in the Carpathian Mountains on the Ukrainian-Romanian border.
The mute Darusya suffers from massive headaches, from which she obtains relief only by immersing herself in icy cold water. The villagers consider her “foolish” or “stupid” for her disability as well as for her eccentric ways, which includes planting flowers everywhere and dancing alone like a dervish. Euphemistically they nickname her “sweet,” suggesting both her aversion to candies as well as the nature of her true personality. The origins of Darusya’s condition are powerfully and compellingly revealed over the course of the novel.
According to the late writer Pavlo Zahrebelny, the book takes the reader on a “journey into our bloody, and no less cruel, [Ukrainian] historical hell, into the abyss, where it is terrifying to peer.” The Lithuanian translator of the novel, Vasyl Kapkan, calls it “a chronicle of Soviet tyranny in Ukraine.”
“Sweet Darusya” (Solodka Darusya) was awarded the Ukrainian Book of the Year Award in 2004, and in 2005 Ms. Matios received the Taras Shevchenko Prize for the novel, the highest national literary honor in Ukraine. Prior to this English translation, “Sweet Darusya” appeared in eight other languages, including German, Italian and French. It is being made into a feature film in Ukraine.
Ms. Matios, a native of the Bukovyna region of Ukraine, lives in Kyiv, where she continues to write. She is the author of 19 volumes of fiction and poetry. Since 2012, she has been a national deputy in the Ukrainian Parliament.
The paperback book is available at the publisher’s website: http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/sweet-darusya.html and from such Internet booksellers as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.