The novel takes place against the backdrop of one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the late twentieth century — the artificial famine and war in Ethiopia in 1984-1986. this is the story of a young Ukrainian, a military translator in Soviet aid groups, who searches for the causes of the tragedy, realizes that he has become part of a cynical deception, and begins a desperate game with the devil. History of choice and found identity. Two painful love stories in times of crucial change. And a family secret, the intrigue of which weaves two storylines into a tight knot. A novel-testimony, a novel-panorama that opens up unspoken pages of the past and leads to a reinterpretation of current events of the present.