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Seven Stories Press

Works of Radical Imagination

Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns

Thoughts on War

by Artem Chapeye

Book cover for Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns
Book cover for Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns

A reporter and novelist who is also a soldier in the Ukrainian army reconsiders his pacifism and the choices one makes when war is waged against you.

"Chapeye represents a modern-day Ukrainian counterpart to classic American writers like Mark Twain or O. Henry, capturing the dignity and respect his characters might not get but nonetheless long for and deserve. . . . —Kate Tsurkan, Los Angeles Review of Books

In Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns, Artem Chapeye reveals his war, intimate and senseless, withholding nothing about his motivations, his nightmares, his new relationship with the world. Here one man, a pacifist turned fighter, a story writer turned soldier considers the reasons for and reactions to war on a very personal level.

Chapeye investigates his role in the Ukrainian people’s defense against the Russian army and his responsibilities as a father, a writer, a soldier, and a man of conviction. An avowed pacifist until 2022, Chapeye joined the Ukrainian army in the first days of the invasion. He tries to understand the large-scale decision-making that has a defining impact on both individual citizens and society-at-large: many of his fellow soldiers never considered enlisting before finding themselves at war; others fled the country. He wonders what his young children at home are doing and what they’re feeling.

The book has three parts, offering historical analogies and literary references throughout.

— “When Darkness Comes” relates the first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 when lives and the peace were shattered.

— “It’s Necessary to Cultivate Your Garden” details the experience of the everyday people of Ukraine, workers and peasants, who look forward to returning to simpler lives.

— The last section, “People Aren’t Divided into Brands,” critiques the elitism of those who consider themselves above those who “simply” fight.


Deeply thought-provoking, intelligent, and heartbreaking, this is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the ways that war can change everything.

Book cover for Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns
Book cover for Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns

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An author of both creative nonfiction and popular fiction, ARTEM CHAPEYE was born and raised in the small Western Ukrainian city of Kolomyia and has spent much of the last twenty years living in Kyiv. He has authored two novels and four books of creative nonfiction, and is a co-author of a book of war reportage. A four-time finalist of the BBC Book of the Year Award, his recent collection The Ukraine was one of three finalists in the award’s new nonfiction category in 2018. Artem is an avid traveler who has spent approximately two years living, working, and traveling in the U.S. and Central America—an experience that has greatly informed his writing. His work has been translated into seven languages, and has appeared in English in the Best European Fiction anthology and in publications such as Refugees Worldwide in translation by Marian Schwartz. Artem is a past recipient of the Central European Initiative Fellowship for Writers in Residence (Slovenia) and the Paul Celan Fellowship for Translators (Austria), as well as a finalist of the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism.