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One year has passed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The conflict has unleashed unspeakable violence, killing hundreds of thousands of people, displacing millions from their homes, and inflicting untold suffering. And the war’s impact on Ukraine’s more-than-human life is just as unfathomable and long-lasting.
In the face of such impossible reckoning, author Anna Badkhen brings together a compilation of vignettes by journalists, poets, and environmentalists in close proximity to the war. From the radioactive Red Forest of Chernobyl’s Nuclear Exclusion Zone, to the liberated but heavily-mined Izium and the fragile ecosystems of the Ukrainian steppes, “The Fallout”’ coalesces into what Anna calls “a schrapneled bearing in time” and makes visible a landscape fractured, disoriented, and deeply harmed.
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Anna Badkhen is the author of seven books, most recently Bright Unbearable Reality, which was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Award from Psychologists for Social Responsibility for writing about civilians in war zones. Anna was born in the Soviet Union and is a US citizen.
