Diaries of War

Reviews / Votes

Diaries of War is a magnificent feat of witness. Nora Krug's illustrated weekly interviews with a Ukrainian journalist and a Russian artist are so much more raw and intimate than a conventional news account, conveying the texture of daily life in wartime as well as the smaller tragedies that often don't make the headlines. Instead of watching from a serene distance, you're engaging with K. and D. Your guard is down. The anguish and shock has gotten in. Read this remarkable book and grant them that act of solidarity -- Alison Bechdel This book will definitely make you think. The geography of Russian aggression is much wider than you might at first imagine. Russian aggression is not only bombs, rockets and millions of refugees. It is also a boomerang that hits the aggressor country itself in the most unexpected way. Nora Krug's dual visualtextual narrative can emotionally drain the reader, but the reader is unlikely to ever forget this book -- Andrey Kurkov Powerful graphic journalism that highlights the contrasting realities of a Ukrainian journalist and a Russian artist grappling with their own individual experiences of Russia's war on Ukraine - collected, edited, and illustrated by award-winning author Nora Krug ... Krug approaches Diaries of War with the immense skill and thoughtfulness required to document these two complicated experiences for the purpose of encouraging critical thinking ... Diaries of War is a harrowing real-time record of an international conflict that continues to devastate countless lives -- Nancy Powell * Comics Beat * As fascist imperialism - with Vladimir Putin as its rotting figurehead - commands attention on the world stage, those living underfoot must survive. Here are the personal accounts of two such survivors, living on either side of the Russo-Ukrainian War, illustrated with poetic grace by Nora Krug. A vital and empathetic document of human experience in terrible times -- Jason Lutes Nora Krug leads us through the first dark year of the war, in search for the roots of violence. Her collage of two unusual and contrasting diaries - one Ukrainian and one Russian - that are presented in parallel and combined with her intrinsic minimalist illustrations, creates a document that enlightens and shocks in equal measure -- Katja Petrowskaja Nora Krug does an extraordinary work combining painful and complex storytelling with an unusual grace and elegance. She manages to involve us in looking at history from an intimate and very human point of view. There is tact, decency and wonder in her books -- Igort If we did not know it before, Covid-19 has taught us that headlines and op-eds are insufficient to convey the grinding reality of an ongoing traumatic event. While our mass media engages in a sustained effort to forget, Nora Krug here reminds us. Illustrated by Krug's gem-like miniatures, these dual accounts from Ukraine and Russia, rooted on either side of that deadly border, each express their own sustained senses of horror and anxiety during the first year of Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine. Russian artist D's total alienation from the shocking acts of his own government will resonate with Americans for whom the Trump administration was only the most recent and egregious example of same. And under any President, we should seek voices like that of Ukrainian journalist K - testimony of those who have suffered under our own government's consistently violent foreign policy. May this book be a model for many others to follow -- Bill Kartalopoulos Growing up as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Hungary, being a victim of war was a fact of life. Diaries of War touches me very personally -- Miriam Katin