Ukrainian Authors Comprise One-Third of Bestsellers Bought by Ukrainian Refugees

Thirty-five percent of the top 20 best-selling novels Ukrainian refugees purchased were written by Ukrainian authors, one of Ukraine’s largest book retailers Knyharnya Ye concluded in their data for the first two quarters of 2024.

The leader in the top 10 is Ukrainian author Illarion Pavliuk with his novel “I See You Are Interested in Darkness.”

The sixth place was secured by Anastasia Levkova’s “There is a Land After Perekop” (a reference to a city in Ukraine‘s Crimean Peninsula).

“Dancing with the Bones,” a medical novel by Andriy Semyankiv, also known as blogger MED Gоblin, secured ninth place among bestsellers, according to Knyharnya Ye’s data.

According to the retailer, the list of bestsellers Ukrainian refugees living abroad buy “remains largely unchanged” due to Ukrainians’ willingness to maintain ties with the Ukrainian language and culture.

“The relocations of Ukrainians were driven by terrible circumstances, and we are glad that we can help bring a piece of something familiar to those who, for now, cannot return home," Kateryna Fedorenko, Knyharnia Ye book retailer CEO, said in a press release.

Other books purchased are translations of US thriller novels and a bestseller about surviving in Nazi concentration camps during World War II by an Austrian author. 

The top ten books Ukrainians purchased abroad in the first two quarters were:

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• “I See You Are Interested in Darkness” by Illarion Pavliuk
• “Intimate Things Explained to Kids” by Yuliya Yarmolenko
• “Taming Tigers: Do Things You Never Thought You Could” by Jim Lawless
• “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
• “Hunting Adeline” (Cat and Mouse Duet Book 2) by H.D. Carlton
• “There is a Land After Perekop” by Anastasia Levkova
• “Hunting Adeline” (Book 1) by H.D. Carlton
• “Walls in My Head: Living with Anxiety and Depression” by Volodymyr Stanchyshyn
• “Dancing with the Bones” by Andriy Semyankiv (MED Gоblin)

The ranking of countries where deliveries were made correlates with the list of countries most frequently chosen by Ukrainians for fleeing after Russia’s full-scale invasion against Ukraine, according to the data.

Poland and Germany lead the list, comprising 69 percent of overall book purchases delivered abroad, the other 30 percent is split between Czechia, the US, Lithuania, and Slovakia.

Four positions in the list mentioned coincide with what Ukrainians are purchasing inside the country, which partly supports Knyharnia Ye’s argument that Ukrainians keep their interest in Ukrainian culture.

According to data obtained by the Kyiv Post—the list of Knyharnia Ye’s bestsellers within the country for 2023—books by Frankl and Pavliuk occupy the first and second positions, respectively. MED Goblin’s novel held third place.

Lawless’s book translated into Ukrainian secured fifth place among bestsellers inside Ukraine. 

Most Ukrainians in Poland keep close ties with Ukraine. More than 60 percent of refugees and more than 50 percent of migrants who moved to the country before 2022 “always feel homesickness,” according to an analytical report by the Institute of Behavioral Studies at American University Kyiv.

“This feeling does not decrease with increasing the time spent abroad,” the authors of the report stated.

One of the key recommendations the scholars mentioned in the study is the need to be involved in Ukrainian educational and cultural space, especially for children of the refugees.