Vita Nostra — Marina and Serhiy Diachenko

Vita Nostra is a novel by Marina and Serhiy Diachenko, published in 2007 and now one of the most celebrated works of Ukrainian speculative fiction. The protagonist Sashka Samokhina enters a mysterious institute of special technologies where the learning process literally transforms students into something more than human.

The novel raises questions about the nature of knowledge, free will, and the cost of transformation. Vita Nostra has won numerous literary awards and been translated into dozens of languages, becoming the signature work of the Diachenko creative duo.