AGAINST THE WIND

What remains when the body can no longer move, but the mind refuses to fall silent? - ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis)

Against the Wind is an intimate autobiographical novel by Ukrainian actress, television presenter, and author Maryna Borodina. Written one letter at a time with an eye-tracking device, it brings together love, motherhood, war, gratitude, humour, and defiance.

Maryna first realised something was wrong while filming in Los Angeles, when her left hand suddenly dropped a prop gun. Months later, after medical consultations across Europe, she received the final diagnosis at an ALS clinic in Switzerland.

Her life changed with terrifying speed. Six months after the diagnosis, she could no longer walk independently. Then Russia's full-scale invasion forced her to leave Ukraine with her parents and sons, first for Poland and eventually for Ireland.

The novel unfolds through two interwoven storylines. Maryna's storyline is entirely true. Every event in it happened in her life, and she tells it with complete honesty. Alex's parallel storyline is also based on real events, although certain details have been changed for the novel. Together, the two narratives explore love, war, loss, courage, and defiance from different perspectives.

As Maryna's physical world narrows, her inner life remains vivid, questioning, funny, and fiercely alive. Through motherhood, faith, memory, displacement, gratitude, and the daily struggle to remain herself, she refuses to let illness determine who she is.

Unable to type with her hands, Maryna wrote the book by selecting each letter with her gaze. The process of creating the novel carries the same message as the story itself: the loss of physical movement cannot erase imagination, humour, identity, or the human need to be heard.

Against the Wind is for readers drawn to emotionally powerful fiction rooted in true experience, women's stories, and books about life with ALS. It is also for anyone who has had to begin again, protect the people they love, or search for meaning when the future no longer resembles the life they planned.

Written with eye-tracking technology by a Ukrainian woman who was already living with ALS when war drove her from her homeland, Against the Wind reveals what illness, displacement, and fear can never take away.

Discover a story of love, gratitude, courage, and defiance, told by a woman determined to remain the author of her own life.