Since Russia’s war in Ukraine began in 2022, Sasha Vasilyuk has humanized everyday people whose lives have been torn apart by the invasion. In opinion pieces for The New York Times, CNN and TIME, the San Francisco author, raised in both Russia and Ukraine, has written extensively about her Ukrainian family members’ experiences as refugees.
Amid big-picture headlines about military strategy and international arms deals, Vasilyuk’s vivid prose allows readers to feel what’s at stake for her relatives — from recent high-school graduates to 90-year-old grandparents — as they grapple with difficult decisions about leaving a homeland that has been destroyed by Russia’s occupation.
Vasilyuk brings that same empathetic approach to her new debut novel, Your Presence Is Mandatory. The sweeping work of historical fiction spans seven decades, from World War II to the recent conflict further fracturing the former Soviet Union.
It follows Yefim, a young, Jewish soldier who must hide a wartime secret that could have him imprisoned, and destroy the life he’s built for his family. His hidden past? The Nazis took Yefim as a prisoner of war, which — under Stalin’s repressive regime — would have made him a traitor.
Through interwoven narratives from the perspectives of Yefim, his geologist wife Nina and their children and grandchildren, the novel deftly captures how the emotional toll of such a secret strains relationships and ripples through generations. The story offers insight on cultural nuances, including gender dynamics, antisemitism and corrosive shame, that expand its scope beyond the family at its center.
