The masterpiece by Serhij Zhadan is a passionate love letter to his multicultural hometown. "Shooting is happening in the streets again," she said, "the war goes on, and no one intends to surrender." Romeo, twenty years old, has come to Kharkiv to study. He listens in awe to the rhapsodic declarations of love for the city, as his landlady tries to distract him from his clumsy attempts at courtship. He incredulously takes in her words about the war – just as we, the readers, do. In "The Invention of Jazz in the Donbas," Zhadan had already demonstrated his unsettling clairvoyance. Those who wanted could read signs of a violent disintegration of the region. In "Mesopotamia," he portrays a modern Babylon, his hometown Kharkiv, by telling the stories of people living in the "Land Between the Rivers.".