Alexey Nikitin. From the Face of Fire

Alexey Nikitin's new novel, "From the Face of Fire," centers on the story of a Kyiv-based Ukrainian-Jewish family. Ilya Goldinov is a boxer, a member of Dynamo Kyiv, and the heavyweight champion of Ukraine. During the first months of the war, Ilya commands a platoon in a partisan regiment, later fighting in a Red Army infantry division, is captured, and finds a way to escape. In February 1942, he is sent to Kyiv on a mission from the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR. His wife, Felixa, is evacuated to the Urals, but in November 1943, she returns to the city with the advancing troops to discover her husband's fate. The novel draws on materials from various archives, including documents from the First Directorate of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR from the SBU archive, declassified in 2011.