The Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, in a review in The Observer at the weekend, praised a new cultural portrait of the eastern Donbas region, Life in Spite of Everything by Victoria Donovan (Daunt, £22). Donbas, he says, may have become synonymous with war and occupation, but it “has always created its own narrative, as superbly depicted” in Donovan’s book. She “creates vivid portraits of… displaced persons, accommodating their memories and commentaries, making you feel as if you’ve watched a documentary”.

I see that Donovan, who is professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies at the University of St Andrews, will be discussing her book with the writer James Attlee at Daunt Books in Summertown, Oxford, on May 29.