When Evgeny Shtorn flees the rising tide of homophobia and authoritarianism in Putin’s Russia, he leaves behind his home and the life he has spent years building. Arriving at a reception centre on the outskirts of Dublin, he discovers that his journey is far from over.
This is a staggering piece of literature.
Stephen Rea
Moving from one direct provision centre to the next, he chronicles the myriad characters he meets – dreamers, survivors, cynics, romantics, opportunists and idealists – all thrown together by circumstance and united by uncertainty. Through tender gestures, small cruelties, wry jokes and raw moments of vulnerability, a vivid portrait emerges; one of exile and dispossession, but also of humour, connection and friendship.
As the banal violence of the system grinds him down, his profound morality, sense of identity, and reserves of empathy all begin to fray. In prose that is taut and utterly compulsive, Shtorn’s first-person chronicler draws us deep into his world, as we wait, dream, fear, fight and sometimes despair alongside him.
Drawn from the diaries Shtorn kept throughout his asylum journey, in a nuanced and polyphonic translation by Alexandra Novitskaya, The Refugee Chronicles is a powerful account of human displacement in twenty-first-century Europe. Part fiction, part memoir, it lifts the veil on the patently absurd and fundamentally flawed system of Direct Provision – a world that is often discussed in the abstract but rarely narrated from within.
Evgeny Shtorn
Evgeny Shtorn is an Irish Russophone writer, activist, and researcher. He left Russia in 2018 due to his civil society work and was granted international protection in Ireland in 2019. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki, where his research examines violence against LGBTIQ+ people in Russia. His work focuses on confronting authoritarian governance, analysing its effects on civil society, and supporting human rights work on the ground. In parallel, he develops autoethnographic writing grounded in lived experience, bridging research, advocacy, and narrative practice. He also collaborates with international partners on initiatives supporting human rights defenders at risk.
Alexandra Novitskaya
Alexandra Novitskaya was born in Leningrad, USSR, just before the latter collapsed and the former became St. Petersburg – where she grew up and which she left in the early 2010s. She has been calling the United States her home ever since, and currently lives between Brooklyn and Baltimore, where she is a Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. A PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Novitskaya has published articles, book chapters, and blog posts for both academic and non-academic readers. The Refugee Chronicles is her first literary translation.
