Letters of the Alphabet Go to War

By: Lesyk Panasiuk

Published by Sarabande Books, 2026-01-20

A bilingual poetry collection translated from the Ukrainian by Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris, Letters of the Alphabet Go to War is Lesyk Panasiuk's remarkable account of living in Bucha, Ukraine, during the apex of war and brutality at the hands of the Russian military. The result is a tremendous work that The Guardian describes as embodying "the idea of the rupture of language through the physical collapse of signs and lettering on buildings hit by missiles." This slim book bears great weight.