Grandmothers and Granddaughters

“Grandmothers and Granddaughters” is a book that takes you home — to the doorstep of a village house, where dried apples scent the air and embroidered pillows are covered with lace. To a grandmother’s voice, family stories, and the language passed down through generations.

The texts are written in dialects from different regions of Ukraine — Polissia, Podillia, the Carpathian Boyko region, Slobozhanshchyna, and beyond. Each dialect carries the particular character of the place it comes from, but all the stories share something deeper: the experiences that the women in this collection have carried with them through decades of hardship, famine, loss, war, and new threats.

Against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, these voices have taken on a new meaning. They preserve a shared cultural memory while offering something just as important — a sense of belonging, resilience, and strength that helps us endure the present.