'To my mind Maria Matios’ Sweet Darusya is the best contemporary Ukrainian novel written since Ukrainian Independence in 1991. It reveals a family saga that is much more dynamic than classical sagas and at the same time is much more touching and engaging. It is an emotional history of Ukraine with a very well researched and vivid historical background that gives the reader the opportunity to understand not only the characters and their drama, but the entire drama of the country/countries in which they lived without leaving their village.' - Andrei Kurkov
'Maria Matios with her novel Sweet Darusya has boldly and strongly tossed political caution and public taboos to the wind - and at her own risk has taken us on a cruel journey into our bloody, and no less cruel, historical hell, into the abyss, where it is terrifying to peer.' - Pavlo Zahrebelny
'Ecstatic reactions, many awards, and the large number of readers are tied to its vivid, rich, but almost never sweet language, thanks to which the old world of a Ukrainian village blooms and begins a new life.' - Uli Hufen, Westdeutscher Rundfunk / Germany
'With Sweet Darusya, Maria Matios constructs a refined literary monument to the victims of fickle history.' - Gerhard Zellinger, Die Presse / Austria
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