'To my mind Maria Matios's Sweet Darusya is the best contemporary Ukrainian novel written since Ukrainian Independence in 1991. It reveals a family saga that is much more dynamic than classical sagas and at the same time is much more touching and engaging. It is an emotional history of Ukraine with a very well researched and vivid historical background that gives the reader the opportunity to understand not only the characters and their drama, but the entire drama of the country/countries in which they lived without leaving their village.' -Andrei Kurkov
'Maria Matios with her novel Sweet Darusya has boldly and strongly tossed political caution and public taboos to the wind-and at her own risk has taken us on a cruel journey into our bloody, and no less cruel, historical hell, into the abyss, where it is terrifying to peer.' -Pavlo Zahrebelny
'Ecstatic reactions, many awards, and the large number of readers are tied to its vivid, rich, but almost never sweet language, thanks to which the old world of a Ukrainian village blooms and begins a new life.' -Uli Hufen, Westdeutscher Rundfunk / Germany
