This fall, the writer Illarion Pavlyuk, author of the best-selling book “I’m reading, the darkness will be upon you,” is releasing a new novel. Let us know everything that is known about the “Book of Emil”.
Who is Illarion Pavlyuk
45-year-old Illarion Pavlyuk is a writer, producer and military service worker, author of the best-selling books “White Drank”, “Dance of the Idiot” and “I’m bachu, it’s dark for you.” Pavlyuk was born in the Kherson region, lives near Lugansk, having earned a career in Kiev, and worked as a producer on the 1+1 channel, as well as a Ukrainian journalist, covering the ongoing military conflicts in the Close Convergence.
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Illarion Pavlyuk's debut novel – “White Drink” – in 2018. Already this year, the writer presented “Dance of the Idiot,” which was included in the short list of the “BBC Book of Rock – 2019” award. The third novel – “I'm learning, it's dark for you” – appeared in 2020, making it to the shortlist of “BBC Books of Rock – 2020” and becoming one of the most popular works of current Ukrainian literature. Since over 100,000 examples were sold in 2024, this figure exceeded 150 thousand.
In 2015, Pavlyuk took part in the Russian-Ukrainian war as a volunteer. In 2022 I turned to service.
About the excitement around the novel “I’m reading, it’s dark for you”
“I know, it’s dark for you” is a psychological thriller, which has everything that readers want: a confused detective line, a killing and the main character with the arrogant “skeletons in the wardrobe”, which is still infused with internal super-eternity dispense with the truth. Andriy Gaister is a criminal psychologist who travels to the village of Buskiw Sad to investigate the girl’s history. There, he encounters a variety of local scumbags: no one can be overpowered by the child’s jokes, by the threat from the side of a secret maniac for the name of the Beast, or by the miraculous forces that respect anyone. Buskiv Garden.
“A lot of things have come out of this book from Bosch’s paintings, multiplied by my reality,” is how Pavlyuk himself describes the novel. Behind its theme, “I’m watching, the darkness will leave you alone,” is a story about the struggle between darkness and light. And, as the author means, there is a benefit to the fact that “it’s always good to read about people who have problems, who don’t have enough to pay for themselves.”
In the spring of 2025, the novel “I’m reading, the darkness will greet you” has lost its theatrical meaning. The premiere of the production directed by Maxim Golenko, produced by the journalist and TV presenter, founder of the “Wild Theater” Yaroslava Kravchenko, took place on the stage of the Lviv Zankovetska Theater, and later – at the “Wild Theater” in Kiev. Like a novel, the rise of the meeting has become a turn: none of the tickets for the Kiev shows will be sold out right up to the fall of the leaves in 2026.
“The Book of Emil” – Pavlyuk’s new novel
“The Book of Emil” is the fourth novel by Illarion Pavlyuk, which tells the story of a boy who cannot sleep. The author started working on the book in 2020. For all our knowledge, the text had many autobiographical moments.
The axis describes the novel “The Rebirth of Old Lev”: “Emil cannot sleep. They need to catch up to the last word. At the same time they move to a place where no one knows – to the snowy island where they live near the school. And one night in the empty school corridors the telephone rings. The ears are raised and I hear the voice of my brother, which died a lot of fate: “Help me turn around!” So how can you turn someone who died? How not to ruin yourself in the world, where the line between what is possible and what is impossible is so thin, and where skin care can cost you your life? What did Emil’s mother really forget? Why don't you tell us a fortune?”
The author voted for the sale of “The Book of Emil” in an unexpected way: Illarion Pavlyuk joined forces with the “Kurgan & Agregat” group to raise 1 million hryvnia for the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Musicians – Amil and Ramil Nassirov and Evgeniy Volodchenko – made a video for the motives of one of the key scenes of the novel “I'm learning, the darkness will tskat you.” The main role of the new vicon is actor Oleksandr Rudinsky.
“The Book of Emil” by Illarion Pavlyuk will be published by the “Old Lev's Book” this fall.
