AustLit

'MARIA TUMARKIN’s fourth book, Axiomatic (Transit Books, 2019), is an urgent and formally daring work of nonfiction about criminal injustice, war trauma, exile, youth suicide, migration, friendship, and institutional memory. Her previous works — on the “morally ambivalent” nature of courage (Courage, 2007), on the aftermath of violence and war (Traumascapes, 2005), and on returning to the Ukraine of her birth (Otherland, 2010) — are each characterized by a burning attention to suffering and resilience and a potent, elastic narrative voice. As with any writer of note, Tumarkin’s distinctive style is hard to quantify — she writes with academic rigor but eschews theory and jargon; she’s neither a dispassionate observer nor confidante, but her tone has heat and intimacy; she’s unafraid of emotion, and her writing is animated with the same generosity and enthusiasm she brings to friendship, which also happens to be a recurring subject in her work. I interviewed Maria as she prepared to travel for Axiomatic’s American launch.' (Introduction)