On the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was asked how my perspective on the war had changed over the past few years.
I'll admit I had to stop and think. But frankly, thinking is difficult when it's bitterly cold at home, there's no electricity and a siren is wailing outside, joined a few minutes later by the sound of explosions. Even for me, an expert at escaping into imaginary worlds.
I write fantasy novels, a genre I particularly appreciate because it allows the reader to take refuge in a reality where good always prevails. Or to sample a more challenging reality before closing the book and breathing a sigh of relief - 'At least I don't have it that bad.' I'm talking about post-apocalyptic fiction, so beloved by Hollywood because, as I'm sure you'll agree, what could be more fascinating than watching a character's struggle for survival in a broken world? Especially when you can just switch off the TV, get up from your comfortable chair, turn on the lights and dismiss it with a wave - 'What a load of rubbish!'
Things get much more complicated in a reality you cannot escape.
I remember interviewing the wonderful writer Joe Hill back in October 2022. His whole family, most notably his father, Stephen King, are staunch supporters of Ukraine. Both Hill and his father are masters of the post-apocalyptic.
We were speaking in October 2022. By that point, the Russians had realised that they were losing on the battlefield and had started bombing civilian infrastructure
. As well as daily shelling, we were faced with circumstances we'd only ever read about in books. People in Ukraine experienced blackouts for the first time, discovering what it's like to be without power and heating for hours on end.
I told Hill that I had distracted myself from the explosions outside my window by reading his post-apocalyptic novel 'The Fireman', in which a terrible epidemic grips the world. As in every self-respecting post-apocalyptic novel, the disease has wiped out civilisation. Cities have been emptied of people due to devastated infrastructure, the survivors have split into warring factions and civilians have gone into hiding.
I explained that I had read his novel while sitting with my six-year-old son in a tent I'd put up in the middle of the room. The tent served several purposes: to distract my son, to keep us warm and to muffle the sound of explosions outside. I said that the book had brought me comfort and even lifted my spirits. This second admission clearly unsettled Hill. 'The Fireman' is a horror story, after all. It's supposed to scare the reader, or at least serve as a warning.
I didn't bother pointing out that fictional horrors are nothing like real ones. He was in his comfortable chair and I was on the other side of the TV screen, but labouring the point would have put a kind, well-meaning writer in an awkward position. He had agreed to this interview to show his support for Ukrainians. So I concentrated on his book and remarked that I'd picked up on a few inaccuracies. 'In your book,' I said, 'you describe civilians hiding in a forest in winter. They have generators, but wouldn't the noise and exhaust fumes give away the presence of the camp? Generators produce a relentless roar.' I could tell from his embarrassed reaction that he hadn't thought of this.
In all honesty, before 2022 I hadn't either.
I'd come across household generators before, but you wouldn't believe the noise they make when combining to supply electricity to an entire city.
'Also,' I continued, 'the absence of light in a city doesn't just mean darkness. It means stars too.'
At the start of the full-scale invasion, 4.5 million people lived in Kyiv. The glow from streetlights, windows and advertisements prevented us from seeing the night sky. But in a blackout
, the sky becomes clear and expansive like a cathedral vault. I remember how, in the first few months of darkness, I would go outside at night and look at the stars. I knew that the whole of Ukraine had been plunged into darkness and that, in that moment, every Ukrainian was gazing at the far-off celestial bodies, silently thanking the country's defenders, sending support to those who had been forced to leave their homes and remembering those whose lives had been cut short by war.
So now, whenever you read a book or watch a film in which civilisation has been left without electricity, remember that darkness is not only generators and the fight for survival - it's also a chance to see the light.
My light is found in my fellow Ukrainians, who for over four years have been overcoming trials that even fantasy authors find difficult to imagine.
Last winter, when the freezing temperatures in Ukraine reached their lowest point, the Russians unleashed the full force of their terrorist rage on our energy infrastructure.
At one point, even the metro came to a standstill in Kyiv, a city of several million inhabitants. The power cut hit as I was at the entrance to a station. And it was like a descent into hell: complete and utter darkness pierced by rays of light from people's phones and expletives directed at the Russians.
The Russians thought we would never withstand the energy armageddon
and would revert to our most primitive instincts, as in a post-apocalyptic novel: looting, destroying everything in sight, overthrowing the government, eating rats and finally surrendering.
Instead, angry Kyivans
emerged from the immobilised underground, some having walked through an entire kilometre of tunnels. Some were lucky enough to find other modes of transport, while others went to work on foot. Trudging through the snow and the bitter cold, angry but undefeated.
Cries of 'We'll never give in!' could be heard amid the profanities.
Fury has replaced electricity for us.
So what can I say, in the fifth year of this full-scale war, when asked how my perspective on it has changed?
War has become an everyday reality, but fear has given way to anger and the desire to survive, even just for another day. Our rage is post-apocalyptic. It's geared towards survival rather than destruction. It compels us to carry on, to rebuild and restore bombed-out buildings, to support the army, to ask others for help and to live. To live life in spite of everything!
To live life while defying all expectations. To stand up against a vast terrorist nation and declare to the enemy, to the world and to our own weaknesses: 'We'll never give in!'
Do you know what Ukrainians say about World War III
, which is now closer than ever? We say that it's just another ordinary Saturday in Zaporizhzhia. If you ever need tenacity, we'll share ours, along with experience of shooting down Iranian drones. We're paying a high price for this knowledge. Our cemeteries are full of flags marking soldiers' graves and newly buried civilians killed by bombs. Every city bears traces of shelling.
But you know what? We are still full of hope. We are unbreakable. We've proven it to ourselves and to the world. We will remember all those who support us. And when the real post-apocalypse arrives, you can be sure that Ukrainians will help you survive it. That is, of course, a joke by a fantasy author, but, as we say in Ukraine, jokes are no laughing matter.
By Svitlana Taratorina, Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy writer, author of the novels Lazarus and The House of Salt. "Letters from Ukraine" is a project of the Latin American solidarity campaign ¡Aguanta Ucrania!, developed in cooperation with PEN Ukraine, UkraineWorld, and the Ukrainian Institute.
