The Sky Unwashed
A novel by Irene Zabytko

ISBN 1-56512-246-1
Hardcover
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ABOUT THE BOOK

Marusia, in her seventies, is the matriarch of the Petrenko family. She has lived and worked all her life in starylis, a tiny town in rural Ukraine. Starylis is a place where families still live in the ancient thatched-roof cottages that have been their homes for generations. It's a place where everyone grows their own vegetables, where the old women (the babas) sweep the church steps daily and bake bread in outdoor communal clay ovens. It's a place where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone else's business. It's a little town just down the road from Chernobyl [sic].

On April 26, 1986, the lives of Marusia, her family, and her townspeople change forever.

The air begins to taste strange, the workers don't come home from their shifts at the nearby power plant. Eventually the Soviet government orders a mandatory and permanent evacuation. But less than a year after the accident, a handful of elderly women - the first of whom is Marusia - defy the government prohibition and return, one by one, to their now deserted town. Despite their differences and their losses, they band together for survival, companionship, and to confront the Soviet officials responsible for their fate.

Powerful, truthful, and triumphant, this is a tale of ordinary citizens who, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, become the most unexpected heroes. Inspired by a true incident and transformed by the talents of a remarkable young writer, The Sky Unwashed is a simple story told with gentle humor that redefines our notions of home and community.

Photo: O.Kuzmowycz ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born and raised in Chicago, Irene Zabytko is a bilingual, first-generation Ukrainian-American who has traveled to Ukraine many times to teach English as a second language and to visit friends and family who live near Chernobyl. She received her BA and MFA from Vermont College and now lives and works as a freelance writer in Florida. The Sky Unwashed is her first novel. Photo: O.Kuzmowycz Irene Zabytko debuted her book at The Ukrainian Museum on October 27.

The Sky Unwashed takes its title from a poem by the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. The poem was written on the island of Kos-Aral in 1848 after Shevchenko was exiled from his beloved Ukraine.

In Ukrainian:
І небо невмите, і заспані хвилі,
І понад берегом геть-геть,
Неначе п'яний очерет
Без вітру гнеться. Боже милий!
Чи довго буде ще мені
В оцій незамкнутій тюрмі,
Понад оцим нікчемним морем
Нудити світом? Не говорить,
Мовчить і генеться, мов жива,
В степу пожовклая трава;
Не хоче правдоньки сказать,
А більше ні в кого спитать.
-- Тарас Шевченко, Кос-Арал,1848

And the sky is unwashed, and the waves are sleepy,
And beyond the shore, far, far away,
The reeds, as though drunk,
Sway without wind. Merciful Lord!
How much longer do I have
In this open prison,
This useless sea,
This tedious world? It doesn't speak.
Silent and bent as if alive,
The steppes' yellowed grasses;
Won't tell the truth,
And there's no one else to ask.
-- Taras Shevchenko, Kos-Aral, 1848
(Translated from the Ukrainian by Irene Zabytko.)

April 26, 1986 marks the date of the most devastating nuclear accident in history - the meltdown of nuclear reactor #4 in Chornobyl, Ukraine.