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Viv Groskop to donate all proceeds from her Ukraine-set memoir to PEN International
Ithaka Press will publish Viv Groskop’s new memoir with all of the author’s proceeds donated to PEN International.
Sarah Braybrooke, publishing director at the Bonnier Books UK imprint, acquired world English language rights from Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown. One Ukrainian Summer is slated for publication in hardback, audiobook and e-book on the 23rd May 2024.
Groskop confirmed that 100% of the income earned by her from this book will be donated to PEN International for their global work supporting writers at risk. Curtis Brown is also donating all its fees associated with the book.
One Ukrainian Summer is a memoir about falling in love and coming of age in the former USSR. “In the autumn of 1993, Viv is about to turn 21 and is on a study year abroad, supposedly immersed in the language, history and politics of a world that has just ceased to exist: the Soviet Union,” the blurb reads.
“Instead, she finds herself immersed in Bogdan Bogdanovich, the lead guitarist of a Ukrainian punk rock band. At parties, gigs and dive bars, Viv and her new friends argue over whose turn it is to buy cigarettes, the best places to find Levi’s jeans and whether beer counts as a soft drink.
“No-one debates the merits of speaking Ukrainian over Russian, the precise location of the border or the undeniable brightness of the future. Of course good times are here to stay. Because the Soviet Union is finished. Isn’t it?”
Bonnier described One Ukrainian Summer as “a poignant and often comical account of coming-of-age in the time after the Cold War and before Putin... a love letter to a unique moment in history".
Braybrooke said: “This is a very special book: Viv’s voice is accomplished, and her ability to evoke an elusive time and place is second to none. This is a no-holds-barred story about searching for adventure and finding more of it than you could ever have imagined.”
Groskop is an award-winning author, comedian, playwright and broadcaster. She has two masters degrees in Russian Studies and is a former judge of the International Booker Prize and was a contributing editor at Russian Vogue for 10 years during the 2000s.
She said: “One Ukrainian Summer is a memoir about the intense passion and boundless stupidity of my youthful self, set during that short-lived time of hope and optimism immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
“It’s funny and bittersweet and also my way of saying sorry to my friend Misha who told me a long time ago, ‘Vivka, don’t learn Russian, learn Ukrainian’.
“Thirty years on, at a time when thousands of Ukrainian voices have been silenced by war, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to donate all the author proceeds for this book to PEN International for writers at risk. Thanks to my agent Cathryn Summerhayes and the team at Curtis Brown who are also donating all fees associated with One Ukrainian Summer.”
