Looking at Women, Looking at War

When Russia started the full-scale war against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country's literary scene and parenting her son. Suddenly she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who were joining the resistance. Her heroines included Evhenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier; Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022; and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children's book author.

Everyone in Ukraine knew that Victoria was documenting the war. She photographed the ruins of schools and cultural centres; she recorded the testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses to atrocities. And she slowly turned back into a storyteller, writing what would become this book.

On the evening of 1 July 2023, Victoria died from injuries sustained in a Russian missile attack. She was thirty-seven. Looking at Women, Looking at War was not finished at the time of Victoria's death, and is published here in its incomplete form. It is an incredible account of the ravages of war and the cost of resistance. Honest, intimate and wry, it will be read for decades to come.