“THE DREAMTIME”

Psychological thriller inspired by true events.

Published in 2020 by Summit-Knyha. Kyiv, Ukraine

The Dreamtime (Ukrainian: Часи сновидінь) is a 450-page fusion of documentary and psychological thriller inspired by true events conceived and written over an eight-year period. Drawing on the Indigenous Australian concept of dreamtime, the novel explores a society’s collective experience of war and conflict and is based on real events that the author witnessed during the war in eastern Ukraine and the migration crises in southern Europe over recent years. It comprises four intertwined plots spanning in space from Ukraine’s war-torn Donbass region to southern Europe and southeast Asia, tied together by themes of existential conflict and the blurred line between reality and dreams.

The novel was launched in Kyiv in 2020as the focal point for a video-art exhibition on the media’s role in creating public collective experiences. It was well-received by critics and praised for its realism in depicting war, for its creative literary depiction of how dreams reflect the psyche and for its "serious" and "masterly” prose.