“An extravagant cocktail with a Ukrainian scent” – these are the words Liudmyla Vynohorodska uses to describe her impressions on reading recently released Svitlana Pyrkalo’s Green Margarita. According to the author, Ukrainian fiction of the latest decades, or, more precisely – Ukrainian post-colonial fiction, pinpoints its own crisis and in many respects inadequacy. A traditional plot once seen as a perfect sample one now appears to be exhausted, over-elaborated, or loaded with too much straightforward propaganda issues. As Vynohorodska tries to show, Pyrkalo’s prose is somewhat different. It’s a try to represent the author’s ‘self’ through the mirror of her principal female character – Marina Pohribna; a fragmented mix (or cocktail) of other people’s words and conversations, images of friends, recollections of parties, events and even insults. In other words, it’s a representation of everyday life of a woman in the post-colonial society with a scope of all-too-familiar questions: money and language, family relations and friendships, employment, accommodation, emigration and so forth. Thus, this remarkable display of life situations and attitudes reflects an overall Pyrkalo’s message, her inner deep concern with gender issues, – argues Vynohorodska.

I really relate to her light and funny style and very proud to note she is a frined of a friend. Some call her Ukrainian Helen Fielding (“Bridgit Jones Diary”). Same description can be applied to her follow up novel “Ne Dumai pro Chervone” (“Don’t Think of Red”). Now Svitlana works at the Ukrainian BBC service in London. Sorry to say there are no translations of her novels into English just yet.