Last Night on Earth: Visual Stories from Armenia, Georgia & Ukraine
Publisher: Komora Books (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Published: 2025
ISBN-13: 9786178137106
Description: “Last Night on Earth. War through the eyes of women from Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine” by Ekaterine Togonidze, Vira Kuryko, Ani Asatryan (Komora, 2025). The three authors – Ani Asatryan (Armenia), Ekaterine Togonidze (Georgia), and Vira Kuryko (Ukraine) – were selected based on their engagement with the subject (war) and the uniqueness of their literary style. The illustrators – Astghik Harutyunyan (Armenia), Luka Lashkhi (Georgia), and Sofia Pokorchak (Ukraine) – were selected through an open competition to give these important stories a visual form. Mikheil Tsikhelashvili, a Georgian writer, translator, and comic book editor, oversaw the creative process and work program as editor-in-chief.

Three different stories from three different countries — Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine — reflect on the complex past and present of wars through the perspective of women and offer a unique insider’s view. The book examines the female experience during and after war, exploring its consequences and impact on women. Through this project, we seek to pay tribute to all the women who are on the front lines — whether as witnesses, or as director indirect participants in armed conflicts.

This project examines wars and conflicts that have deeply affected the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, emphasising the universal need for peace and security. The wars represented in this book are: the War in Abkhazia, Georgia (1992–1993), the Russian-Georgian War (2008), the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Wars (1988–2023), and the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War (2014–present).

This book was created as part of the project “Visual stories from Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine”, which was co-funded by the European Union.

The stories in this book give me
insight into the difficult
environments of the protagonists,
scarred by war or oppression. They
also let me experience what is going
on inside them while their world falls
to pieces. Perhaps this experience,
more than all the facts and news, will
help us all draw our own conclusions
and stand up for what makes us human.
As banal as it sounds: peace, justice,
solidarity with those without a voice.
Love.

─ Reinhard Kleist

These stories let us experience the
consequences of war from a female
perspective. The drawings bring their
stories to life and convey emotion:
they make us feel profound empathy for
the unknown other. Such is the power
of comics.

─ Eva Hilhorst

Ani Asatryan is an Armenian novelist and cross-media author published in Words Without Borders and Absinthe (University of Michigan Press). Her work is taught at UC Berkeley, the University of Basel, the University of Cyprus, and AUA. A Chevening Fellow (University of Sussex), she has held residencies at Villa Empain (Brussels) and the Erlangen International Comic Salon (Germany), with her publications archived in major international collections.

Ekaterine Togonidze is a georgian journalist, author, lecturer and activist for the rights of people with disabilities, Ekaterine Togonidze, was born in Tbilisi in 1981. Ekaterine Togonidze made her literary debut in 2011 with her short story collection “Anesthesia” with which she introduced a new theme to Georgian literature: the discrimination against disabled people in society. The book was awarded the SABA Literary Prize for the best debut of the year in 2012. She also was the winner of different literary competitions including the best story of the year (Sulakauri publishing prize), The BEST SHORT STORY (Literary Magazine) and the script development competition (Georgian National Film Center). She has got the Writing Scholarship of Writers’ House and was a scholarship holder for residency of Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB).

Her first novel “Asynchrony” was translated into German. Her latest novel “You-Home” became a best-seller immediately after its release. Her works have also appeared in magazines in Georgia and abroad, and have been translated into English, German, Czech and Abkhazian.

Vira Kuryko is a Ukrainian journalist, reporter and writer. She has penned a collection of stories, including “The Street of Those Involved. The File on Lukianenko from Chernihiv”, a historical non-fiction for children “Mazepa. Rights to the Sabre”, and a non-fiction book titled “Healthy Person’s Reform”.

She is a reporter and writer for Ukrainian media outlets such as Reporters, The Ukrainians Media, Lokalna Istoria (Local History), Ukrayinskiy Tyzhden (The Ukrainian Week), Ukrainska Pravda. Her texts have also been published in German, Polish, and Czech media. She has been nominated for the BBC-2020 Book of the Year literary prize, is an awardee of the prize LitAccent of the Year 2020, winner of the contest Chest’ Profesiyi 2020 (Honor of the Profession) in a nomination Reportage. She is the author of several reportages in the joint book-collection of Reporters authors — 77 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine.
In 2022, she worked as a documentarian on The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies to document Russian war crimes in Ukraine. She is the author of a reportage about the first bombing of a residential area in Chernihiv, which was included in the book “The Most Frightening Days of My Life”.

Mikheil Tsikhelashvili is a Georgian writer, translator and comic-book editor. He graduated from Tbilisi State University (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and Ilia State University (Master of Cultural Management). For 7 years Tsikhelashvili had been working for Sulakauri Publishing as an acquisition editor and rights manager. Later he joined the Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe team as an archive coordinator for one complete season.

After publishing his first novel in September 2019, Tsikhelashvili started part-time freelance practice as a translator, writer, and script supervisor and part-time volunteering. In his catalog, one can find a novel, a collection of short stories, two comic books, eight translated books, two movie scripts, and tens of articles. Currently, he lives and works in Porto, Portugal.

The consortium partners implementing the project are ARI Literature Foundation (ARI), Literature Initiative Georgia (LIG), Komora Publishing, Drawing the Times.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. The European Union can’t be held responsible for them.