In eastern Ukraine, war has long been part of everyday life...
Pasha, a Ukrainian teacher, travels to a nearby town to bring his nephew home from boarding school. However, the seemingly routine task is complicated by the fact that it is January 2015 and that an unpredictable front line stretches between him and thirteen-year-old Sasha, turning the expedition into a several-day drama with a highly uncertain ending. Softened by appearance, the scholar does not care about the cold, snow or danger and shows unexpected dedication as he wanders through the severely tested land. The physically and mentally challenging journey will force the formerly resigned anti-hero to finally grow up and accept responsibility for his actions. With every step, the realization that an insidious hybrid war is tearing neighbors and entire families apart grows stronger in Pasha, and many of its participants don't even realize what's really at stake. How will he protect the mature but still innocent at heart Sasha from these horrors? And can he even find the boy in the ensuing chaos and walk him home?
The war novel, awarded the 2018 Leipzig Book Fair Prize, is a modern and extremely impressive variation on the initiatory prose type.
