Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk is a historical novel about a Ukrainian WWII veteran and a secret that could tear him and his family apart. Based on real events, Vasilyuk’s debut spans decades and two different totalitarian regimes while tenderly crafting a character-driven story.
Coming April 23 from Bloomsbury Publishing, we talked to the author about the subtle and gorgeous cover design. The author grew up reading books in the Soviet Union where covers had no design whatsoever. Vasilyuk didn’t want a barren cover but didn’t want something completely bare either. She ended up sending Bloomsbury the illustration that showed tanks rolling past apartment buildings that accompanied her New York Times op-ed about her family to show the foreboding mood she thought would work best as the cover.
When she finally saw the cover, she knew it perfectly captured the sense of threat the main character lived under throughout his life.
“I loved how arresting it was, how clear in terms of place (Soviet Union) and theme (war),” Vasilyuk said about her initial reactions to seeing the cover. “I also loved the collage feel of the envelope and the face, which reminded me of early Soviet posters and the art of the Russian Avantgarde (which included plenty of Ukrainian artists). I received the cover image while walking into an Apple store and showed it to one of those Apple “geniuses”, a young, super-hip techie who, to me, seemed as far away from my book’s subject matter as one could get. I asked what they thought this book was about and they immediately answered, ‘Communism’. Which was how I knew the cover worked.”
The design also has another tie to Valisyuk and her family. An in-house designer at Bloomsbury read Your Presence is Mandatory and felt kindred to it as her family’s story was very similar to the plot of the book.
“Imagine that? When I heard that the cover would be designed by someone with such a similar background, I trusted her completely.”
You can pre-order a copy of Your Presence is Mandatory here!