Iryna is a writer. Her positive attitude and outlook on the world showed through already on the first day of the invasion. Enemy equipment was moving through Konotop. Friends kept urging Iryna not to leave the house. But she needed to know if the Ukrainian flag was still flying in the city center. So she set off on foot to check. The flag was still there.

Later, huge queues for food and essential goods began in Konotop. She regularly had to run to the basement during air raid alarms. Already in Kyiv, Iryna witnessed a missile attack. She recalls a missile flying nearby. Then there was Kherson and the attack with KAB bombs.

But the horrors of war didn’t change her humorous attitude toward life. And Iryna embodies this positivity in her books. So that smiles on Ukrainians’ faces help them get through difficult times.