Night Train to Odesa

Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in 2022, Jen Stout has documented the war; in Russia, on Romanian border crossings, and all across Ukraine. Known for her vivid dispatches in print and for BBC radio, Jen’s Night Train to Odesa tells the story of a freelance reporter making her own way across a war-torn country. 

Jen will be in conversation with Louise Troup, and they will venture from a Moscow winter to the Danube Delta, from Kyiv to Odesa, Kharkiv and Kramatorsk. The action will be centred on birthday parties and in bunkers, aboard night trains and dug into frontline positions, in the company of ordinary, heroic Ukrainians trying to live under relentless attack. 

Jen is the winner of the Saltire Society’s First Book Award and the Highland Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize.