Margaryta Yakovenko's 'Ocupación' Chronicles Family History of War and Displacement

Journalist and writer Margaryta Yakovenko has published 'Ocupación' (Seix Barral), a book detailing her family's history of war and displacement. Born in Ukraine, she emigrated to Spain at age seven. The book opens with the death of her grandfather in the Ukrainian city of Tokmak on April 20, 2022, during the Russian invasion. Yakovenko originally wrote the words as a personal coping mechanism for grief, not intending them for publication. The narrative interweaves her family's past with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, including reflections on how audiences consume war imagery, contrasting videos of children in Gaza with those of kittens. The work is a personal account rather than a heroic war story, focusing on ordinary lives affected by geopolitical events.