Oleh Shynkarenko. Kaharlyk

Oleh Shynkarenko

Work proposed for translation:

Kaharlyk 
A dystopian novel (2015)
Length: 224 pp.
Copyright: Author: singingfoot@gmail.com

Oleh Shynkarenko (born 1976) is a modern Ukrainian writer, journalist, musician, screenwriter and blogger. An engineer by education, since 2008 he completely changed his activity to journalism, collaborating with Ukrainian and international media. He was also the editor of the VideoTeKa project. Since 2013, he has been collaborating with Hromadske Radio. However, all this time he has been working intensively as a writer. His passion for science fiction and “black” humour has formed Shynkarenko’s unique style. Currently, he is the author of several published novels and collections of short stories. Among them: How to Disappear Completely (2007), Bon Appetit! (2009), Kaharlyk (2013), First Ukrainian Robots (2016), Skull (2017), Bandera Distortion (2019). His work is characterized by the ideas and style of metamodernism, dystopia and (agro)cyberpunk.

The plot of the novel Kaharlyk unfolds against the backdrop of a post-nuclear conflict between Ukraine, Russia and China, in a world where the past is intertwined with the future, and reality is a puzzle that needs to be reconstructed piece by piece. From the first pages, the reader is immersed in the chaos and multidimensionality of the environment in which all temporal and spatial boundaries are destroyed, and the development of technology and a primitive, degraded society closely coexist. The main character, Oleksandr Sahaidachnyi, wakes up in a destroyed building, having lost his memory, after an unsuccessful attempt to copy his consciousness into a special device — a morphone. In search of his wife Olena, he begins a journey through the territories of the “Gray Zone”. In addition to the main character, the story is told by two copies of his consciousness: the space station Yurii Gagarin and the satellite FRS, which articulate polar points of view (the first — revealing the propaganda ideas of the enemy, the other — a desperate struggle for common sense). Kaharlyk is a frank fantasy about the possible consequences of a nuclear catastrophe and the loss of national identity. Shynkarenko masterfully combines humour with the grotesque, offering the reader a shocking and at the same time ridiculous picture of the post-nuclear world and exposing the absolute vulnerability of our reality.