Letter Z
Price range: €15.99 through €39.95
Chronicles of Peace and War
A Research Novel
Author: Oleksandr Sambrus
Translators: Svetlana Payne
Last-year students of the Cinematography Institute have lots of things to do! To get a degree, one needs to pick a suitable topic, write a killer script, and shoot a graduation film…
Final-year students at the Cinematography Institute are swamped with demands: choosing a topic, crafting a killer script, and shooting a graduation film to earn their degree.
But these are anxious times. Russia has amassed a formidable military force along Ukraine’s borders. How can anyone concentrate?
Time is running out—the war has already begun. Though few believed it possible, it erupts like a ruthless steamroller, emblazoned with a crude letter Z, flattening millions of lives in its path.
Letter Z is the first comprehensive attempt to capture how it all unfolded—an epic novel chronicling two years of Russian aggression in Ukraine. Blending imagination with stark reality, it weaves the journeys of fictional characters into a tapestry of verified facts, dates, and harrowing testimonies. This is no mere story; it’s an investigative narrative, the author’s unflinching perspective on events that, in truth, ignited not in 2022 but as early as 2014—a simmering conflict in Donbas that has now escalated into full-scale war. Will it endure forever?
Above all, Letter Z probes the questions haunting us all: How could this happen? Why? And the most agonizing—how much longer must it last?
| Dimensions | 152 × 229 mm |
|---|---|
| Author | Oleksandr Sambrus |
| Book Format | Hardcover, Paperback, PDF |
| Publication date | 27th November 2025 |
| Pages | 614 pages |
Author
Oleksandr Sambrus
Oleksandr Sambrus, born on May 24, 1951, is a distinguished Ukrainian author who writes both in Ukrainian and Russian. A graduate of Kyiv State Taras Shevchenko University, he specialized in English and French within the Translators’ Department of the Faculty of Romano-Germanic Philology, with an additional focus on world literature.
After completing his education, Sambrus spent several years working abroad before returning to Ukraine in 1993. Upon his return, he played an active role in European projects aimed at transforming Ukrainian society and improving local governance. His insights into these topics found a platform in his work as a columnist for the Kievskie Vedomosti—the most widely circulated newspaper in Ukraine during that time—and later for the weekly Ukraine. Europe. World. Additionally, Sambrus has been a prominent voice in national media, often focusing on American subjects. He furthered his expertise with studies in the USA under the program “Print Press in the USA” in 1995.
Sambrus began his literary journey by contributing "small form" literary pieces to various media outlets. His debut novel, The Summer Heat. Extravaganza, was released in digital form by Andronum Publishers in 2015, quickly followed by The Partially Consumed Marriage. A Collection of Irreconcilable Stories—a compilation of short stories and a novelette. These works were later published in print by Folio Publishers, one of Ukraine’s major publishers. His subsequent novels, Uar-Marr. The Drama of Modern Life (also known as Springboard to Europe) and Our Times Hero, along with the short story collection Tsigel-tsigel…, were published by Sumit-Kniga, Kyiv.
A steadfast observer of his nation’s heartbeat, Sambrus chose to remain in Kyiv after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. His experiences during this turbulent period inspired him to write Letter Zed, a poignant response to the conflict. His recent endeavors also include a theatrical play, Guelder Rose vs Devil, a metaphorical representation of Ukraine’s resistance that is currently under literary review.
Oleksandr Sambrus’s works, characterized by a deep understanding of cultural and social dynamics, continue to resonate with readers in Ukraine and beyond.
Translators
Svetlana Payne was born in Ternopil on the western rim of the Soviet Union, in 1961 and graduated with honours in philology, teaching of foreign languages and translation from the University of Lviv.
The illustrated compilation of the poetry by Daniel Kharms in Sveta’s translation, The Charms of Harms, appeared in 2011 and is still selling today. As a reverse in the cultural tide, in 1997 Sveta produced a Russian translation T. S. Elliot’s The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats which has now achieved a ‘Gold’ version for numerous reprints. In 2012 appeared her translation of The World’s Wife, by Carol Ann Duffy, and the libretto of Jesus Christ Super Star to enable a performance of this very popular musical in Russian.
Sveta has translated a biography of Boris Yeltsin (Boris Yeltsin: The Decade that Shook the World, (Glagoslav), a novel by Arseny Revazov (Loneliness-12, A&NN) and co-worked on two novels by the prize-winning Russian author Victor Pelevin (S.N.U.F.F. and Empire V, Gollancz).
Her most recent work is a translation of Sivtsev Vrazhek by Mikhail Osorgin (The Riven Heart of Moscow in translation) – a book written in the aftermath of the Revolution and the First World War has now been published by Glagoslav.
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