La historia de Ucrania contada a trav s de una apasionante saga familiar, que recuerda el impacto de Unorthodox, Todo est iluminado o La octava vida

«Me dej sin respiraci n. Una de las mejores autobiograf as del a o . --R. Tomaszewska, Virago (Reino Unido)

En 2014, Vika regresa a su Ucrania natal para investigar un misterio familiar: c mo muri su t o tatarabuelo Nikodim en la d cada de 1930 y por qu su historia sigue siendo tab casi un siglo despu s. Desentra ar viejas inc gnitas resulta complicado, pero nunca habr a previsto que la resistencia m s fuerte la encontrar a en su abuela Valentina, que le proh be remover el pasado. No en vano Ucrania es «tierra de sangre , como sus vecinas Polonia, Bielorrusia, Rusia y los pa ses b lticos: en el rea de Poltava, donde residi la familia, el KGB desapareci hace ya mucho, pero su antiguo cuartel general todav a aterroriza a los lugare os.

Mientras el pa s se sumerge en un nuevo conflicto con Rusia tras la anexi n de Crimea, el lector acompa a a Vika entre los temidos archivos del KGB en busca de la verdad sobre el pasado del pa s y sobre Nikodim, incluso a riesgo de un enfrentamiento directo con su familia.

Entre el memoir y la novela detectivesca, esta obra conjuga su enorme carga emocional con un l cido an lisis de la historia. Al tiempo que Victoria Belim terminaba esta novela sobre una Ucrania que intentaba hacer las paces con su pasado y florecer, su tierra se enfrentaba de nuevo al dolor de otra cruel guerra.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

A timely and deeply moving memoir of the author's Ukrainian family history, interwoven with the country's tumultuous story

In 2014, the landmarks of Victoria Belim's personal geography were plunged into tumult at the hands of Russia. Her hometown Kyiv was gripped by protests and violent suppression. Crimea, where she'd once been sent to school to avoid radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, was invaded. Kharkiv, where her grandmother Valentina studied economics and fell in love; Donetsk, where her father once worked; and Mariupol, where she and her mother bought a cherry tree for Valentina's garden all became battlegrounds.

A naturalized American citizen then living in Brussels, Belim felt she had to go back. She had to spend time with her aging grandmother and her cousin Dima. She had to unravel a family mystery spanning several generations. And she needed to understand how her country's tragic history of communist revolution, civil war, famine, world war, totalitarianism, and fraught independence had changed the course of their lives.

The Rooster House is a beautifully written memoir of a family, a country's past, and its dangerous present. It is about parents and children, true believers and victims, gardens and art, secrets and tragedy. Compulsively readable, deeply moving, and at times laugh-out-loud funny, it is a stunning debut book by an experienced, expressive, and gifted writer.

Mi Ucrania / The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story, a Memoir - häftad, Spanska, 2023