Books in brief: Intent to Destroy: Russia's 200-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine; The Accidental Immigrants; and White Butterfly
Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine
By Eugene Finkel
Basic Books, £25
Vladimir Putin's illegal, three-pronged
invasion of Ukraine
has escalated towards genocide because the Kremlin will not tolerate an independent Ukraine and because ill-prepared, undisciplined Russian troops have reacted to unexpected resistance with an orgy of unco-ordinated mass murder, this authoritative and cautionary history states. The February 2022 invasion was the latest in a succession of Russian attempts to control the Ukrainian land mass, which has been populated for centuries by Jews, Poles, Czechs, Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Crimean Tatars. Ukraine was independent between 1919 and 1921, but 'Russian violence against Ukraine will continue to shape European and global politics for decades to come', warns Lviv-born academic Finkel.
Ray Burke
The Accidental Immigrants
By Jo McMillan
Bluemoose Books, £10.99
Writing political fiction is always something of a gamble; writing a political novel about the rise of the far right, which takes as its backdrop the years since Brexit, is even riskier. These are urgent themes, but their immediacy can threaten the imaginative work of a novel. The Accidental Immigrants, however, is no generalising parable. The novel, set on the fictional island of St Mira, is attuned to the insidiousness of xenophobia, the suspicion of 'foreign accents', the 'rage that year after year had been thumbed on a whim into phones'. Its plot reveals how quickly this can wreak havoc on the most ordinary patterns of everyday life, how 'History' itself 'depend[s] on who you ask'.
Philippa Conlon
White Butterfly
By Saoirse Prendergast
Marble City Publishing, £13.99
Saoirse Prendergast's debut is a beautifully haunting exploration of grief, loss, and the unravelling of self-identity. Set on a remote island off the east coast of Canada, it follows Sakura, a young girl whose life is shattered by her father's death. As she struggles to cope, her artist mother freezes in sorrow, and Sakura's connection to the world dissolves. Finding solace in horses, a new relationship offers both hope and peril. Prendergast skilfully portrays the insidious nature of psychological manipulation, showing how it erodes Sakura's sense of self. While the story is powerful, at times the prose is patchy, with descriptions that fall short of the emotional depth it strives for. Nonetheless, White Butterfly is a poignant meditation on survival, healing and the essential support needed to overcome trauma.
Adam Wyeth
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