Overview

The first time Lara Marlowe interviewed Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko in Ukraine in 2023, Marlowe realized that the 28-year-old woman army officer was one of the most extraordinary people she had encountered in 42 years of journalism. Mykytenko was born in Kyiv in July 1995. She co-founded the ‘female squad’ of the 16th regiment of the Self-Defence Force during the 2013/14 Euromaidan protests, which overthrew the corrupt, pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. She married Illia Serbin, a soldier, in 2015 and joined the army to serve with him in Donbas the following year. Mykytenko briefly left the army after her husband was killed in a Russian bombardment, but re-enlisted on the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion of 24 February 2022. She commands a 25-man drone unit on the frontline in Donbas. Drawing from a series of interviews with Mykytenko through the winter of 2023/24, Marlowe paints a searing portrait of life on the frontline and offers insights into Ukraine’s past and possible future. How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying is a compelling story of a country at war and a fearless woman fighting for its survival.

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9781035910175

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Reviews

What an extraordinary, spectacular book! As long as there are women like Mykytenko in the world, human society will be okay. The combination of courage and love in a single person is an ancient story and one that we must hear over and over again to know that it’s possible. And Marlowe’s prose is so powerful and compelling that I was at a loss as to when to put the book down and do something else for a while. It may well be one of the best and most important books to come out of this brutal war that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine. * Sebastian Junger, New York Times Bestselling author of In My Time of Dying * This is an account of the Ukrainian soul. If you want to know who we are and why we fight, if you want to understand the heart of this conflict, from the experience of a woman who has seen more than you will ever know, please read this book. It touched me deeply. I recognized the events and familiar places, but most of all, I recognized Yulia Mykytenko. I knew her father and have followed her destiny without thinking that the story of her struggle would be turned into a book - such a powerful book about this strong and wilful female soldier. The roots of Ukrainian defiance are clearly visible in this down-to-earth but moving story. * Andrey Kurkov, winner of the Prix Medicis and the National Book Critics Circle Award, author of Death and the Penguin * A defiant dispatch from the crucible of Ukraine, How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying brings an illuminating vision of an ongoing war, a portrait of bravery and endurance amidst the dirge of battle. * Nico Walker, New York Times bestselling author of Cherry * Unsparing but tender, filled with love and pain, this extraordinary book gives voice to a new generation of Ukrainians whose lives have been interrupted by the Russian war machine that has sought to destroy and subjugate their homeland since 2014. * Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for Wall Street Journal and author of Our Enemies Will Vanish * This book is an extraordinary act of moral courage. It feels like it was created not so much by a writer, and indeed her subject, but by the absolutely necessary spirit of our times. It is a book that is prepared to reach the depths of despair, and yet somehow to cleave open the darkness too. A song about our broken times, it reveals the human strands that hold us together against the odds. * Colum McCann, author of the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin *

What an extraordinary, spectacular book! As long as there are women like Mykytenko in the world, human society will be okay. The combination of courage and love in a single person is an ancient story and one that we must hear over and over again to know that it’s possible. And Marlowe’s prose is so powerful and compelling that I was at a loss as to when to put the book down and do something else for a while. It may well be one of the best and most important books to come out of this brutal war that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine. * Sebastian Junger, New York Times Bestselling author of In My Time of Dying * A defiant dispatch from the crucible of Ukraine, How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying brings an illuminating vision of an ongoing war, a portrait of bravery and endurance amidst the dirge of battle. * Nico Walker, New York Times bestselling author of Cherry *

What an extraordinary, spectacular book! As long as there are women like Mykytenko in the world, human society will be okay. The combination of courage and love in a single person is an ancient story and one that we must hear over and over again to know that it’s possible. And Marlowe’s prose is so powerful and compelling that I was at a loss as to when to put the book down and do something else for a while. It may well be one of the best and most important books to come out of this brutal war that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine. * Sebastian Junger, New York Times Bestselling author of In My Time of Dying *

What an extraordinary, spectacular book! As long as there are women like Mykytenko in the world, human society will be okay. The combination of courage and love in a single person is an ancient story and one that we must hear over and over again to know that it’s possible. And Marlowe’s prose is so powerful and compelling that I was at a loss as to when to put the book down and do something else for a while. It may well be one of the best and most important books to come out of this brutal war that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine. * Sebastian Junger, New York Times Bestselling author of In My Time of Dying * A defiant dispatch from the crucible of Ukraine, How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying brings an illuminating vision of an ongoing war, a portrait of bravery and endurance amidst the dirge of battle. * Nico Walker, New York Times bestselling author of Cherry * Unsparing but tender, filled with love and pain, this extraordinary book gives voice to a new generation of Ukrainians whose lives have been interrupted by the Russian war machine that has sought to destroy and subjugate their homeland since 2014. * Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for Wall Street Journal and author of Our Enemies Will Vanish * This book is an extraordinary act of moral courage. It feels like it was created not so much by a writer, and indeed her subject, but by the absolutely necessary spirit of our times. It is a book that is prepared to reach the depths of despair, and yet somehow to cleave open the darkness too. A song about our broken times, it reveals the human strands that hold us together against the odds. * Colum McCann, author of the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin *

Author Information

Lara Marlowe was born in California and studied French at UCLA and the Sorbonne and International Relations at Oxford. She started her career as an associate producer for CBS’s 60 Minutes programme in Paris, then moved to Beirut where she worked for eight years for the Financial Times and TIME magazine. She has reported for a host of broadcast and print media, and was a staff foreign correspondent, based in Paris and Washington, for The Irish Times from 1996 to 2023. Marlowe has covered more than a dozen wars and won four press awards. She was made Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 2006 for her contribution to Franco-Irish relations. Marlowe has completed three long reporting stints in Ukraine for The Irish Times since Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022. She is the author of Love in a Time of War (2021), Painted with Words (2011) and The Things I’ve Seen (2010).

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