Bloomsbury bags journalist Miller on transformation of Ukraine

Bloomsbury Continuum has acquired The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine by writer and journalist Christopher Miller. 

Publisher Tomasz Hoskins obtained world English language rights for the non-fiction work in an exclusive submission from David Patterson at Stuart Krichevsky Agency.

Miller’s book charts the transformation of modern Ukraine. “It is the story of the country’s tumultuous recent history through peacetime, revolution and war, drawing intimate portraits of the people and events shaping the Eastern European nation and forging a new Ukrainian identity,” the synopsis explains. 

Hoskins said: “I have been looking for a deeply felt and powerful book on Ukraine for many years – recent tragic events have made it more important than ever that we understand the Ukrainian people, their history and future. Christopher Miller has been leading the frontline reporting in Ukraine, and his dispatches have made for some of the most moving and perceptive writing on the war. This also represents a major acquisition for Bloomsbury Continuum in the US, where we are building a vibrant, seriously readable list of intelligent non-fiction on subjects that affect us all.”

Miller is based in Brooklyn, New York, and Kyiv, Ukraine. He appears frequently on major US television news programmes, including those on CNN and MSNBC. He also features regularly on podcasts and radio programmes on the BBC, NPR, CBC, Crooked Media and elsewhere. Since 2019 he has been lead correspondent in Ukraine for Buzzfeed News, where he has been covering the current conflict. Before that he spent five years as a correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Kyiv. His writing and journalism has been published in Politico Europe, the Times, the Guardian, Atlantic, CNN, Vice News, the Telegraph, the Independent, Outline and Global Post. His coverage of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 won the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.

“I am very pleased to be working with Bloomsbury Continuum on this book, at such an enormously important moment when the stakes are so high for Ukraine, and the world is transfixed on the Russian invasion of the country,” he said. “I’ve spent more than 12 years deeply embedded in Ukraine, building relationships and writing about its many complexities, exploring its culture and beautiful weirdness, and reporting from the frontlines of Russia’s war against it. 

“The book traces my journey in parallel with Ukraine’s, through peacetime, revolution, and war. It’s a narrative about the people and events that have forged a new Ukrainian identity and nation along the way, and the conflict and threats they are now enduring. I am eager to share their stories with the world.”

The War Came to Us will be simultaneously published in the US and the UK by Bloomsbury Continuum in June 2023.