Upon careful review, the Editorial Board of the Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series recommends Seagulls by Nina Chayka for publication through Black Lawrence Press
About the Author
Nina Chayka is a writer from Saint Petersburg, Russia. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and is pursuing a PhD in Art History. She currently lives in Brooklyn.
Artist’s Statement
A teenage Olympic champion in Krakow, a stripper in New York, an American professor at Yale, a tech executive with a hidden past, a doctor turned undocumented nanny – the lives of these people have become interwoven in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Seagulls is a collection of linked stories that follows these Ukrainian and Russian women and men as they navigate exile, marriage, violence, and love.
The book draws on stories I collected from Ukrainians and Russians whose lives were shattered by the war. These narratives are paired with my own experiences as a member of a Muslim minority in Russia, my escape from harassment and threats of the Russian government, and my eventual exile in the United States.
Through these interconnected lives, Seagulls explores how individuals bound by war find the relentless, if sometimes reluctant, need to move forward.
Excerpt
After returning home, I sort the money into hundreds, twenties, tens, fives, and ones. The crisp sandpaper of the banknotes dry out the skin on my fingers with their gray dusty residue. There’s nothing like it. The total of $1,574 beats my previous record by $87. If the club offered to deposit the cash into our bank accounts, I wouldn’t take it. I earned this money. Every single half-torn five, every scrunched-up ten that someone’s grubby hands stuck in my bedazzled bra. I loved to unfold them, sort them, straighten the corners, lay them out on the table. I earned it, with the blooded blisters on my throbbing feet and the sweat sticking to the small of my back. I am spent, like a good animal after a thorough fuck or a long run. There is nothing left of me after I shower. I am clean, like a new twenty. Clean, like my bright future in America.