Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns: Thoughts on War

A reporter and novelist who is also a soldier in the Ukrainian army reconsiders his pacifism and the choices one makes when war is waged against you. 'Chapeye represents a modern-day Ukrainian counterpart to classic American writers like Mark Twain or O. Henry, capturing the dignity and respect his characters might not get but nonetheless long for and deserve.' --Kate Tsurkan, Los Angeles Review of Books In Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns, Artem Chapeye reveals his war, intimate and senseless, withholding nothing about his motivations, his nightmares, his new relationship with the world. Here one man, a pacifist turned fighter, a story writer turned soldier, a father and husband, considers the reasons for and reactions to war on a very personal level. An avowed pacifist until 2022, Chapeye joined the Ukrainian army in the first days of the Russian invasion. He tries to understand the large-scale decision-making that has a defining impact on both individual citizens and