Ukraine of the 90-s in a „New Journalistic Novel“ by Les Beley „The Wicked Nineties: Love and Hatred in Uzhhorod“

Abstract

Understanding of new historical stages requires new literary approaches. An interesting attempt to describe Ukrainian reality of the ‘90s in a new journalistic style is the novel by Les Beley “The Wicked Nineties: Love and Hatred in Uzhhorod” (2014). In this work, real characters tell real stories in their own voices. These are the representatives of various youth subcultures, bartenders, disc jockeys, policemen, etc. The text is full of essential documentary facts. Beley uses a lot of dialogues, quotations, interview fragments, slang, dialectisms and colloquialisms. The book contains practically all the techniques of “new journalism”, suggested by T. Wolf. The fact that they are present in the text does not only enable the readers to interpret it as a “new journalistic novel”, but also proves the formation of a new literary journalistic tradition in Ukraine.