How Good It Is I have No Fear 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, 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 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 Médicis and author of Death and the Penguin '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, as 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 Let the Great World Spin

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).