A former aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will write about her home country and its famous leader in a new book, the Associated Press reports.
Atria/One Signal will publish Iuliia Mendel’s The Fight of Our Lives this summer. The press describes the book as a “frank and moving inside account” of Zelenskyy’s “improbable rise from popular comedian to the president of Ukraine.”
Mendel worked as a journalist before becoming Zelenskyy’s press secretary in 2019; she served in the position for two years. Recently, she’s been contributing articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Washington Post; a recent one described the atrocities visited upon the people of Bucha, a Kyiv suburb.
“Woven into her account are details about her own life as a member of Zelenskyy’s new Ukraine,” Atria/One Signal says. “Written with the sound of Russian bombs and exploding shells in the background, Mendel details life lived under Russian siege in 2022.”
In a statement, Mendel said, “I’ve dreamed all my life of telling the story of Ukraine. It’s a triumphant one. A story not of victims, but of heroes in defense of freedom. Now, as Ukraine, the largest of the post-Soviet republics, stands up for democracy against the Russian army for all to see, I can finally share that story with the world.”
The Fight of Our Lives is slated for publication on Sept. 13.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
