The writer was known for her two novels, “Fall Syndrome” and “Dom’s Dream Kingdom” — both about contemporary Ukraine — as well as children’s literature. She was awarded the Joseph Conrad Literary Award in 2021 and was a finalist for the European Union Prize for Literature in 2019. “War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War,” an English-language nonfiction work about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is forthcoming.
“It’s just hard for me to write in Ukrainian now. I only manage to do it in English, because English has always been the language I use to write in difficult times,” Amelina said in an interview published earlier this year with Chytomo, a literary website. “When you write in a foreign language, you get a certain distance away.”
PEN Ukraine said in a statement that doctors and paramedics “did everything they could to save her life, but the injuries were fatal and incompatible with life.” Her loved ones were with her during the last days of her life, it added.
Amelina’s death brings the total number of fatalities from the attack to 13. Dozens of others were wounded, and three children were among the dead.
The restaurant, Ria Lounge, was located just miles from the front lines. It was popular with international journalists, aid workers and locals, who gathered for sushi, pizza, hookah and dance music on a terrace. But in the aftermath of the attack, the restaurant was reduced to rubble, The Washington Post reported, with debris and metal framing strewn about and blood splattered on one of the white dining sofas.
The strike by an Iskander ballistic missile at dinner time came amid a counteroffensive by Ukraine to recapture territory seized by Russia. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused the Kremlin of intentionally striking civilian targets as a way of sowing chaos and attempting to chip away at the nation’s morale. Western officials have joined Kyiv in branding many of these actions war crimes.
Amelina was a native of the western city of Lviv. She was partially educated in Canada before returning to Ukraine, where she earned a graduate degree in computer technology and joined a tech sector that was bustling before the invasion. In 2015, she began a full-time literary career. When the war broke out, she focused her writing on the invasion and worked with Truth Hounds, an investigative group, to document alleged war crimes.
About 9,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the start of the war, according to an estimate early last month by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, which said that the actual number of fatalities was probably much higher.
The writer is among a handful of prominent Ukrainians who have been killed during the war, including figure skater Dmytro Sharpar and ballet dancers Vadym Khlupianets and Artyom Datsishin.
Amelina had been on vacation in Egypt when the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, and flew to Prague with her son after civilian air travel to Ukraine was suspended. “When we landed there, I burst into tears and told my son: ‘We are home,’” she told Chytomo.
She said her son, who she left in Poland before returning to Ukraine to work, said that they were not yet back home.
To which she replied, “This is Europe.”