Modern Animal by Yevgenia Belorusets is a book published in 2021 by ISOLARII Belorusets connects a series of different characters and ideas, making use of a Soviet-style lecture form. While writing the novel, Belorusets interviewed people along the Donbas region, approaching the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through stories about animals. ISOLARII co-founder Sebastian Clark described the work “as a great refutation of autofiction.” The book was published with a foreword by filmmaker Peter Greenaway. Writing for magCulture, Danielle Mustarde notes how over the course of the novel the "once-structured Modern Animal evolves into a dream-like mix of interview, folklore and fiction." Forewords by Peter Greenaway and Nikita Kadan.

Yevgenia Belorusets is a photographer and writer. She is the co-founder of “Prostory”, a journal for literature, art and politics, and a member of the interdisciplinary curatorial group “Hudrada”. Her works move at the intersection of art, literature, journalism and social activism, between document and fiction.

"Isolarii is a pocket-sized magazine that conceives of every issue as a kind of ‘island’; new space from which to view the world. Authored by the Ukrainian artist Yevgenia Belorusets, issue five is entitled ‘Modern Animal’ and is conceived as a series of lectures on the modern lives of animals.
Speaking to me via email, Belorusets explains that she chose the lecture form to mimic “the Soviet form of education — when I was very young before the USSR collapsed”. But while many lectures are based on interviews Belorusets conducted while travelling through war-torn regions of Ukraine, Modern Animal is in essence a work of fiction. Throughout the course of the tiny book, the boundary between human and animal shifts and changes, with lectures voiced by animals.
Strange twists and non-human narrators can make this issue difficult to follow, but if you submit to its dream-like logic, Modern Animal makes for an enlightening read. Co-editor Sebastian Clark talked us through the inspirations behind this very unusual magazine."