[1] Voroshylovhrad is a city located in Donbas in eastern Ukraine known as Luhansk after the Soviet Union dissolved.

In an effort to break the colonial tradition of writing names using Russian phonetics, guidelines from the Ukrainian government (with y for и and h for г)[4] translate the title to "Voroshylovhrad".

In May 2014, when Voroshylovhrad was controlled by the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, Zhadan wrote the unrecognised state "exists exclusively in the fantasies of the self-proclaimed 'people's mayors' and 'people's governors.

Driven by nostalgia and combatting unfairness, Herman stays in Voroshilovgrad, distancing himself from his previous life towards an unknown future.

The novel garnered positive attention from magazines like Publishers Weekly,[6] The New Yorker,[5] and Los Angeles Review of Books.