Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns

“People in Ukraine dream about peace. But peace does not come when the country which was invaded stops fighting. That is not peace; that´s occupation. Occupation is another form of war. Russian occupation means enforced disappearances, torture, rapes, denial of your identity, forcible adoption of your children, filtration camps, and mass graves. Ordinary people don’t carry machine guns. But If they stop fighting, they will cease to exist.”
—Oleksandra Matviichuk, Ukrainian human rights lawyer

“Chapeye reflects on his path to military service, the ways in which the war has upended parts of Ukrainian society, and what it means to hold onto your humanity when forced to pick up a weapon.… Ordinary People Don’t Carry Machine Guns stands as a timely, clear-eyed account of the sacrifices Ukrainians have had to make to defend their homeland.”
—Kate Tsurkan, The Kyiv Independent

ARTEM CHAPEYE was born and raised in the small Western Ukrainian city of Kolomyia and has spent much of the last twenty years living in Kyiv. He is the author of two novels and four books of creative nonfiction in Ukrainian and is a co-author of a book of war reportage and has four-times been a finalist of the BBC Book of the Year Award. The title story of his recent collection The Ukraine was excerpted in The New Yorker and received high praise. Artem is an avid traveler who spent close to two years living, working, and traveling in the U.S. and Central America-an experience that has greatly informed his writing. His work has been translated into seven languages and has appeared in English in the Best European Fiction anthology and in publications such as Refugees Worldwide, translated by Marian Schwartz. Artem is a past recipient of the Central European Initiative Fellowship for Writers in Residence (Slovenia) and the Paul Celan Fellowship for Translators (Austria), as well as a finalist of the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism. He serves on the board of PEN Ukraine. He has been a soldier in the Ukrainian army since the early days of the Russian invasion.

ZENIA TOMPKINS is an American literary translator and founder of The Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation. Her published books include adult fiction, adult nonfiction,and children’s. Zenia’s work as a translator and promoter of Ukrainian literature has been featured by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Poets & Writers, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, and Public Radio International. She is devoting 2023 and 2024 to working exclusively with Ukrainian authors who have enlisted in Ukraine’s armed forces since the Russian invasion. Since its inception in 2019, TAULT has worked with over one hundred of Ukraine’s top and emerging authors.

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