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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, now Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom Valeriy Zaluzhnyi 9 joined online in August the country's largest summer book festival BestsellerFest in Lviv, where he presented his book "My War". A batch of signed copies was prepared in advance for readers, since the author could not personally come. In total, the book has already found more than 37 thousand readers.
One of the conditions for authors' participation in the festival is personal presence at events or autograph sessions, but due to Zaluzhnyi's busy schedule the organizers agreed to a compromise format: a limited batch of books signed in advance by the general, and the discussion with the author occurred online, according to Espreso.
"As you grow up, you acquire a purpose. When you guard your principles and your purpose, a plan appears. And when a plan appears, comes my war — a war with your own fears, a war with people who will try to pull you down, a war with circumstances that will constantly push you out and provoke you," Zaluzhnyi said.
According to Zaluzhnyi, he did not want the book to be a memoir in principle. "I really did not want the word 'memoirs' to appear. I wanted the plot to unfold like a novel," he explained, adding that he consulted with his wife and publishers to avoid this format. According to him, this is his first literary experience, and he received both criticism and a good amount of positive feedback.
He revealed details about the second part of the trilogy.
The presentation was moderated by Yaryna Melnyk, representative of the Vavilonska Biblioteka publishing house, which published Zaluzhnyi's book. According to her, "My War" was released at the end of 2024 year and for 2025-th was one of the national bestsellers, and now it is coming out in a second edition. The book tells about Zaluzhnyi's formation — childhood, education, family life, the ATO period and the start of the full-scale invasion — focusing more on character and values than on a strictly memoir-like retelling of events.
"My War" is the first part of a trilogy; the plan is for "Our War" and "Their War" to appear, though when exactly is unknown. Overall, the book has already found more than 37 thousand readers. According to Melnyk, the publishing house was impressed by the author's literary instinct, and among the book's audience there are not only soldiers and young people but also parents who read it with younger school-age children.
By 9 August Zaluzhnyi shared impressions from the presentation on social networks, also talking about the plan for the second part.
"And I also very much do not want history to be rewritten. This is what drove me to work nights on the first book, and what motivates me to write the second one still at night," Zaluzhnyi wrote.
He also thanked the BestsellerFest organizers, the Vavilonska Biblioteka publishing house, and everyone who came to the event in Lviv.
The city hosted a second book festival.
The three-day BestsellerFest, founded by poet and editor-in-chief of Stare Leva Publishing House Mariyana Savka, took place in Lviv for the second time this year — from 7 to 9 August on the territory of !FESTrepublic. According to Savka, Zaluzhnyi's participation in the festival is not connected with politics.
"We have no politics at this festival, but we have freedom of thought and freedom of expression. It is important for us to have people from very different backgrounds who create literature," Mariyana Savka, editor-in-chief of Stare Lev publishing house and founder of the festival, noted.
They recalled the struggle against the liquidation of Ukrainian books.
The topic of book culture remains sensitive amid the war: Russia systematically destroys Ukrainian literature in occupied territories. Earlier Informator reported that Russia conducts libricide against Ukraine, destroying millions of Ukrainian books in the occupied territories. We also wrote that Lina Kostenko's birthday celebration sparked a loud controversy.
Informator also wrote that Ukraine's ambassador to Britain, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, stated that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO. He explained this by the Alliance lagging behind the realities of modern warfare. It was also reported that Zaluzhnyi, together with Fedorov and Budanov, headed the ranking of the 'second choice' for possible presidential elections. The general, according to data from the Center for Social and Marketing Research "SOCIS", received 12,9% of the votes.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Залужний презентував у Львові свою книгу, яку вже купили десятки тисяч людей". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.
