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Ivan and Phoebe
Ivan and Phoebe spotlights the uproarious generation that led the Ukrainian independence movement of 1990; from subjugation to revolution to post-Soviet rule, it investigates the difficulties and absurdities of societal change and the families that change with it. Ivan and Phoebe chronicles the lives of several young people involved in the Ukranian student protests of the 1990’s, otherwise known as the Revolution On Granite or the “First Maidan.” The story bounces between politically charged cities like Kyiv and Lviv, and protagonist Ivan’s small, traditional hometown of Uzhgorod. As characters come to exercise their rights to free speech and protest, they must also re-evaluate the norms of marriage, family, and home life. While these initially appear to be spaces of peace and harmony, they are soon revealed to be hotbeds of conflict and multigenerational trauma. Married couple Ivan and Phoebe grapple with questions about family, trauma, and independence. Although Ivan tells the story, Phoebe’s voice rings through the text as she divulges her own traumas through poetic monologues. The two reflect on the traumatic aftermath of torture at the hands of the KGB and each other. While Ivan refuses to talk about his pain, Phoebe describes her past through poetic monologues. Lutsyshyna’s poetic form allows her to experiment with characterization and genre, creating her own category. Through her characters’ vivid voices, Lutsyshyna creates a his- and her-story of a panoramic view of post-Soviet society and family life through social, political, and economic crises.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2019
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About the author
Oksana Lutsyshyna
12 books7 followersSee also Ukrainian spelling; Оксана Луцишина
Oksana Lutsyshyna (née Kishko; born 10 October 1974) is a Ukrainian poet, professor and writer who is a recipient of the Shevchenko National Prize, and member of PEN Ukraine. She primarily writes poetry and fiction in Ukrainian, with additional work on blogs for the feminist website Povaha.
Oksana Lutsyshyna (née Kishko; born 10 October 1974) is a Ukrainian poet, professor and writer who is a recipient of the Shevchenko National Prize, and member of PEN Ukraine. She primarily writes poetry and fiction in Ukrainian, with additional work on blogs for the feminist website Povaha.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 14, 2023
This books paints a vivid picture of a time of hopes and fears, with a generation of men at the brink of losing themselves, robbed of hopes for the future, and multiple generations of women robbed of their voices and any possible life choice, women for whom nothing ever changes. At times the writing style is excessive, too charged, and the plot gets lost - just like its main characters. Overall a strong book that leaves a vivid impression and a feeling for the epoch it describes.
September 9, 2023
The existential scars of oppression and the wellsprings of activism and change in modern Ukraine (Lviv, Kyiv, & Uzhhorod, western Carpathian region; 1990s): Ivan and Phoebe isn’t an easy read. But it’s an important one.
A read to remember, not to forget. Soulfully aimed at, “hoping that the world will hear us and gasp at the beauty and the sadness” – the poetic words of awards-winning Ukrainian writer/poet/scholar Oksana Lutsyshyna from one of her poems.
What Ivan and Phoebe does is challenge us, makes us think. Makes us want to understand. Translated books are more difficult, as the history, culture, traditions, language are unfamiliar to us. All the more reason to read this no-holds barred examination of a country besieged by horrific wars, oppression, human rights denials, poverty and economic insecurity – yet today leads the world fighting for Democracy.
Where does this remarkable resoluteness, resistance come from? “What kind of people were these dissidents that neither prisons nor labor camps could break them?” What about those traumatized? The novel is a powerful study of contradictions. Nothing is straightforward nor guaranteed.
Viewed through the lens of Ukraine’s long and complex history, how does a young marriage survive when it seems doomed from the start?
If Ivan doesn’t even know his own country’s history, how much do we know?
Ukraine’s history matters, but you don’t have to google as many references as I did (how can a reviewer share her thoughts without doing her best to understand?) to viscerally feel the tensions, conflicts, themes. Stunning prose unlocks the door for entering and becoming immersed. You won’t want to turn away, even if you wish there was more beauty than sadness.
The novel’s structure sets up the darkness in store, with a “pinprick of light”: Part I, “The Gloaming,” Part II, “Revolution,” Part III, “The Choir,” striving to reform/transform when there’s so much “leftover from the Soviet days.”
Lutsyshyna is also a professor of Ukrainian Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, in Austin. Citing Ukrainian poets and writers, and others from elsewhere, she brings unexpected pleasure in elevating the arts, predominately literature and poetry. For persecuted people, inspiration and hope in seeing life can be better and offer ways to endure.
Ivan and Phoebe won the prestigious UNESCO City of Lviv Literature Award and the Taras Shevchenko National Literature Prize, honoring the Father of Ukrainian Modern Literature whose influence spread around the globe.
Symbolism abounds. While all reviews are interpretations, Ivan and Phoebe stretches the imagination. This one warrants a caveat: you may see things differently.
The striking cover seems to capture the plot’s trajectory of trying to bridge the gap between the Old and the New – from Soviet rule until 1990 to Ukraine becoming an independent country in 1991. The design seems to depict the transition. Embroidery, an example of Ukraine’s traditional craftsmanship, connecting to the importance of goats, from conventional goat farming to entrepreneurialism (making profitable goat cheese.) Ivan’s brother-in-law, Styopa, represents this spirit and resourcefulness. Or in the quoted words of Ukrainian dissident/poet/writer Vasyl Stus, Styopa seen as “adjusting and filling-oneself-with-oneself.” Dangers seen in that too, one that shocks.
Why give Ivan and Phoebe equal billing in the title when its Ivan’s voice we predominately hear? Phoebe’s silence – except for two caustic outbursts told in two free verse monologues – signals a feminist perspective defying a woman’s place was to only hold up the home. (Not now, when women are on the frontlines defending Ukraine against Putin’s War.)
About to be married when the novel opens, their marriage is a case study of what goes wrong when love isn’t assured; when parents/society pressure you to become a man (Ivan); when one partner has other aims in life and isn’t given the freedom to pursue them (Phoebe).
The marriage adds another “tectonic” layer to an already stacked tale that digs into the meaning and purpose of life. “Meaninglessness,” “uselessness,” “hopelessness” versus finding meaning, purpose, and hope through rallying against tyranny in a country battling for independence over a century. While the focus is narrowed down to the birth of Ukraine’s modern era in the revolutionary 1990s and the aftermath, it’s still complex and plagued by depravation, corruption, exhaustion, and who’ll have the will to carry on what was begun?
The married couple live under Ivan’s mother’s roof. Margita, hardheaded, dominates. Whatever you think of her, she’s as “immovable” as some of the student protestors Ivan gets mixed up with when studying IT at Polytechnic National University in Lviv. Ivan’s father, a heavy drinker, “flattened by life.” When Ivan wonders, “How does a man choose to remove himself from the world?” he shows he badly lacks self-awareness that expands to Phoebe’s needs. The novel paints a nation’s struggle for identity, Ivan and Phoebe’s too.
Phoebe’s real name is Maria. Named Phoebe, after Phoebus we’re told, the Greek goddess of poetry. Phoebe yearns to be a poet but Ivan doesn’t understand why homemaking and motherhood wouldn’t satisfy her. Margita has zero use for poetry, as there’s so much work to be done.
Phoebe’s poems hit a nerve with Ivan. Seems to date back to his university days where he met “red-hot” Rose, poet and activist. In Lviv, his best friend/roommate/poet encouraged him to join the hunger strike that grew and spread to Kyiv, culminating in the peaceful Revolution on Granite. Thought to be an energizing force that led to Ukraine’s independence when the Soviet Union collapsed.
After protesting in Lviv, Ivan becomes terrorized by what he believes is a Soviet spy after him, evoking a black-and-white spy chase thriller. “The tension he felt was unhuman, unbearable.” So he flees to his childhood home, doubting he was ever courageous. This is the haunted state of his psyche when he steps into the fraught marriage.
If you believe “writing and reading are revolutionary acts that can and should change the world,” as Will Evans does, founder of Deep Vellum, the largest indie US publisher of translated books, then you’ll appreciate Nina Murray’s translation. A poetess too, from Lviv, the Cultural Capital. Ivan’s home in Uzhhorod, a small city in the Carpathian Mountains southwest of Lviv, is where the author is from.
Atmospheric prose distinguishes one ancient city from another. Kyiv the beautiful one, with its riverbanks and pedestrian bridge over the Dnieper River (“no other city in Ukraine could boast a waterfront so European, so Parisian!), compared to Lviv, “cavernous, gray, full of spires,” and where “the entire community had developed its own strategies of resistance and survival.”
Margita highlights Ukraine’s great ethnic diversity (100 different nationalities). She’s from Transcarpathia bordering Hungary. Regions are depicted as having different political parties, besides the traditional cultural uniqueness, owing to the historical reshuffling of territories and boundaries. This explains why pálinka (Hungarian vodka), holybtsy (stuffed cabbage) and other dishes flow through Ivan’s home, and why this minority group is looked down upon by those Ivan encounters, who seem to believe Ukrainian-Hungarians may be more susceptible to Soviet/Russian influences.
Citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Castaneda’s “psychedelic texts” enlarges the philosophical/existential quality of the novel. Stus’ “The Road of Pain” poetry collection said to speak of the worst kind of mental and physical cruelty (Soviet solitary imprisonment and grueling labor camps) and yet he found the strength to write uplifting poems. “The debris of torment/might give birth to flowers” sums up Ukrainian empowerment.
“Ukrainians know fear. They also know how to overcome it.”
A read to remember, not to forget. Soulfully aimed at, “hoping that the world will hear us and gasp at the beauty and the sadness” – the poetic words of awards-winning Ukrainian writer/poet/scholar Oksana Lutsyshyna from one of her poems.
What Ivan and Phoebe does is challenge us, makes us think. Makes us want to understand. Translated books are more difficult, as the history, culture, traditions, language are unfamiliar to us. All the more reason to read this no-holds barred examination of a country besieged by horrific wars, oppression, human rights denials, poverty and economic insecurity – yet today leads the world fighting for Democracy.
Where does this remarkable resoluteness, resistance come from? “What kind of people were these dissidents that neither prisons nor labor camps could break them?” What about those traumatized? The novel is a powerful study of contradictions. Nothing is straightforward nor guaranteed.
Viewed through the lens of Ukraine’s long and complex history, how does a young marriage survive when it seems doomed from the start?
If Ivan doesn’t even know his own country’s history, how much do we know?
Ukraine’s history matters, but you don’t have to google as many references as I did (how can a reviewer share her thoughts without doing her best to understand?) to viscerally feel the tensions, conflicts, themes. Stunning prose unlocks the door for entering and becoming immersed. You won’t want to turn away, even if you wish there was more beauty than sadness.
The novel’s structure sets up the darkness in store, with a “pinprick of light”: Part I, “The Gloaming,” Part II, “Revolution,” Part III, “The Choir,” striving to reform/transform when there’s so much “leftover from the Soviet days.”
Lutsyshyna is also a professor of Ukrainian Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, in Austin. Citing Ukrainian poets and writers, and others from elsewhere, she brings unexpected pleasure in elevating the arts, predominately literature and poetry. For persecuted people, inspiration and hope in seeing life can be better and offer ways to endure.
Ivan and Phoebe won the prestigious UNESCO City of Lviv Literature Award and the Taras Shevchenko National Literature Prize, honoring the Father of Ukrainian Modern Literature whose influence spread around the globe.
Symbolism abounds. While all reviews are interpretations, Ivan and Phoebe stretches the imagination. This one warrants a caveat: you may see things differently.
The striking cover seems to capture the plot’s trajectory of trying to bridge the gap between the Old and the New – from Soviet rule until 1990 to Ukraine becoming an independent country in 1991. The design seems to depict the transition. Embroidery, an example of Ukraine’s traditional craftsmanship, connecting to the importance of goats, from conventional goat farming to entrepreneurialism (making profitable goat cheese.) Ivan’s brother-in-law, Styopa, represents this spirit and resourcefulness. Or in the quoted words of Ukrainian dissident/poet/writer Vasyl Stus, Styopa seen as “adjusting and filling-oneself-with-oneself.” Dangers seen in that too, one that shocks.
Why give Ivan and Phoebe equal billing in the title when its Ivan’s voice we predominately hear? Phoebe’s silence – except for two caustic outbursts told in two free verse monologues – signals a feminist perspective defying a woman’s place was to only hold up the home. (Not now, when women are on the frontlines defending Ukraine against Putin’s War.)
About to be married when the novel opens, their marriage is a case study of what goes wrong when love isn’t assured; when parents/society pressure you to become a man (Ivan); when one partner has other aims in life and isn’t given the freedom to pursue them (Phoebe).
The marriage adds another “tectonic” layer to an already stacked tale that digs into the meaning and purpose of life. “Meaninglessness,” “uselessness,” “hopelessness” versus finding meaning, purpose, and hope through rallying against tyranny in a country battling for independence over a century. While the focus is narrowed down to the birth of Ukraine’s modern era in the revolutionary 1990s and the aftermath, it’s still complex and plagued by depravation, corruption, exhaustion, and who’ll have the will to carry on what was begun?
The married couple live under Ivan’s mother’s roof. Margita, hardheaded, dominates. Whatever you think of her, she’s as “immovable” as some of the student protestors Ivan gets mixed up with when studying IT at Polytechnic National University in Lviv. Ivan’s father, a heavy drinker, “flattened by life.” When Ivan wonders, “How does a man choose to remove himself from the world?” he shows he badly lacks self-awareness that expands to Phoebe’s needs. The novel paints a nation’s struggle for identity, Ivan and Phoebe’s too.
Phoebe’s real name is Maria. Named Phoebe, after Phoebus we’re told, the Greek goddess of poetry. Phoebe yearns to be a poet but Ivan doesn’t understand why homemaking and motherhood wouldn’t satisfy her. Margita has zero use for poetry, as there’s so much work to be done.
Phoebe’s poems hit a nerve with Ivan. Seems to date back to his university days where he met “red-hot” Rose, poet and activist. In Lviv, his best friend/roommate/poet encouraged him to join the hunger strike that grew and spread to Kyiv, culminating in the peaceful Revolution on Granite. Thought to be an energizing force that led to Ukraine’s independence when the Soviet Union collapsed.
After protesting in Lviv, Ivan becomes terrorized by what he believes is a Soviet spy after him, evoking a black-and-white spy chase thriller. “The tension he felt was unhuman, unbearable.” So he flees to his childhood home, doubting he was ever courageous. This is the haunted state of his psyche when he steps into the fraught marriage.
If you believe “writing and reading are revolutionary acts that can and should change the world,” as Will Evans does, founder of Deep Vellum, the largest indie US publisher of translated books, then you’ll appreciate Nina Murray’s translation. A poetess too, from Lviv, the Cultural Capital. Ivan’s home in Uzhhorod, a small city in the Carpathian Mountains southwest of Lviv, is where the author is from.
Atmospheric prose distinguishes one ancient city from another. Kyiv the beautiful one, with its riverbanks and pedestrian bridge over the Dnieper River (“no other city in Ukraine could boast a waterfront so European, so Parisian!), compared to Lviv, “cavernous, gray, full of spires,” and where “the entire community had developed its own strategies of resistance and survival.”
Margita highlights Ukraine’s great ethnic diversity (100 different nationalities). She’s from Transcarpathia bordering Hungary. Regions are depicted as having different political parties, besides the traditional cultural uniqueness, owing to the historical reshuffling of territories and boundaries. This explains why pálinka (Hungarian vodka), holybtsy (stuffed cabbage) and other dishes flow through Ivan’s home, and why this minority group is looked down upon by those Ivan encounters, who seem to believe Ukrainian-Hungarians may be more susceptible to Soviet/Russian influences.
Citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Castaneda’s “psychedelic texts” enlarges the philosophical/existential quality of the novel. Stus’ “The Road of Pain” poetry collection said to speak of the worst kind of mental and physical cruelty (Soviet solitary imprisonment and grueling labor camps) and yet he found the strength to write uplifting poems. “The debris of torment/might give birth to flowers” sums up Ukrainian empowerment.
“Ukrainians know fear. They also know how to overcome it.”
October 17, 2025
Ivan ain’t shit
January 5, 2024
You should read this book…
January 18, 2024
Okay...there's a lot here. To start, Ivan and Phoebe is definitely a "nation in a novel" kind of a project. There's Ukraine's contested status as a (post)colonial, post-Soviet, postsocialist country. There's the multilingual and multiethnic demographies of Ukraine, the marginalization of Ukrainian history within Soviet historical narratives, the looming afterlives of Soviet-era architecture, the discrimination against and persecution of Ukrainian language in Soviet times, the disillusionment with the post-Soviet period. The Revolution on the Maidan, the endless references to Ukrainian poets and historical figures. The suspicion and distrust of mental healthcare..aaaand there's the misogyny. Good lord, the misogyny is rampant. It seemed to me that Lutsyshyna was trying to enact a critique of what could be called the Maidan man-a guy who fought and suffered for Ukraine's independence (in 1990-1991) while simultaneously stifling any flicker of (creative) independence that might be present in the women around him (principally Phoebe, his wife, but also Rose, his college love, and even Margita, his mother). As Cory Oldweiler noted in his WWB review, Phoebe remains a (mostly) voiceless and superficial character throughout, and is not even half of the narrative space as Ivan is (surprising, given the title of the book). In all, this felt like a Grand Novel, a work that aimed to cover a wiiiiiide swath of Ukrainian history and culture. And what to make of the ending? A crazed, dramatic murder scene, or just a sad collapse of a man made pathetic over time?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 10, 2025
This book is set in post-soviet Ukraine in the 90s, which was super interesting to learn about through the narratives of these characters. However, there’s a lot about how it’s written that could be improved. It’s a nonlinear timeline, which isn’t clearly stated and can get confusing at times. And there are a ton of characters that are introduced at a distance and never flushed out, making it difficult to remember who’s who. I loved the poetic style of prose, and the characters who were flushed out were believable.
February 17, 2024
Lecture captivante.
Je sais que c'est fait exprès, mais j'aurais TELLEMENT aimé entendre plus souvent la voix de Phoebe.
Je sais que c'est fait exprès, mais j'aurais TELLEMENT aimé entendre plus souvent la voix de Phoebe.
March 4, 2024
Real rating: 3.5 stars.
June 29, 2025
1.5
I do think she is a talented writer and I really like the structure of the plot but at times the book feels overwrought and overly sentimental in its politics.
I do think she is a talented writer and I really like the structure of the plot but at times the book feels overwrought and overly sentimental in its politics.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews