Torture Camp on Paradise Street

Stanislav Aseyev is a Donetsk-born Ukrainian writer and journalist. In addition to two books recounting his experience under Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine, he is the author of a collection of poetry, a play, and a novel. Under the pen name Stanislav Vasin, he published short reports in the Ukrainian press on the outbreak of Russian-sponsored military hostilities in Donbas. Arrested and unlawfully imprisoned by separatist militia forces for “extremism” and “spying,” Aseyev was held captive and subjected to intermittent torture. In 2021, he was awarded the prestigious Taras Shevchenko National Prize for In Isolation. Zenia Tompkins is an American literary translator and founder of The Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation, a nonprofit literary agency and translation house dedicated to promoting contemporary Ukrainian literature in the Anglophone world. Nina Murray is a poet and an award-winning translator of Ukrainian literature, including works by Oksana Zabuzhko, Oksana Lutsyshyna, Serhiy Zhadan, and Lesia Ukrainka. She is the author of several poetry collections and a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service.

A difficult read but an important one… This book allows us to understand the Russian occupation and everything that has been going on since Russia forcibly invaded Ukraine in 2014… Aseyev writes with beautiful clarity and philosophical richness. His book is a testament to the dignity and the strength of the human spirit.