Since February 24, thousands of women like Justyna have crossed the border every day. With children, pets, and sick parents, they ran away from the horrors brought by the Russian army into Ukraine. Justyna recently retired but hasn’t lost a taste for life. But the war changed everything. An intelligent and smart teacher, she becomes a refugee in Europe, along with thousands of other Ukrainian women.
“Who are you?”
“I am Justyna,” she would always answer the question that seemed to come from everywhere.
Together with Justyna, readers travel through a long road toward the search for the self in the world that dramatically expanded and yet existed only at home, in Ukraine. Foregrounding the traumatic experience of becoming a refugee, the loss of home, and a reconsideration of a new life, the novel answers the question of who really is Justyna as well as every Ukrainian woman who lived through the experience of forced displacement.