Doubleday nets Pickhart's debut set during Kyiv demonstrations

Doubleday has netted the debut novel by Kalani Pickhart, set during the 2013 and 2014 demonstrations in Kyiv.

Kirsty Dunseath, publisher, acquired UK and commonwealth rights to I Will Die in a Foreign Land from Eric Obenauf at independent US publisher Two Dollar Radio. It will publish on 22nd September. 

I Will Die in a Foreign Land begins when then-president Yanukovych failed to sign an agreement with the European Union, opting instead to forge a closer alliance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The publisher said: “The peaceful protests turned violent when military police shot live ammunition into the crowd, killing over 100 civilians. Using a mixture of narrative, journalistic pieces and folk song, the novel follows four characters during this volatile winter—a Ukrainian-American doctor, an engineer originally from Pripyat, near Chernobyl; a fiery young activist, and a former KGB agent– as they seek out love, redemption and meaning during tumultuous times.”

The novel was published by Two Dollar Radio in October 2021, before the current invasion and has quickly gained the attention of booksellers, reviewers and readers in the US. Two Dollar Radio rapidly sold out of the first print run and had to bring the paperback forward by six months. The novel has just won the prestigious New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award for writers under 35 and was chosen as a best book of the year by New York Public Library, Cosmopolitan, and Independent Book Review. It has recently been picked as a Best Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble.

Dunseath said: “This is an immensely moving, emotional novel that has real resonance and depth as we follow the lives of ordinary individuals against the backdrop of an intense historical moment. Two Dollar Radio have found this wonderful new voice and I’m excited to be bringing Kalani’s work to the UK.”