Within these covers is the profound and masterfully crafted epic historical novel "Ears of Rye Under Your Sickle" by Uladzimir Karatkievič , consistently the most beloved work of Belarusian literature. But today the author's personality is no less important to us than the twists of the plot. And when we pick up a book, we want to hear the author's voice without the rustle of the censor's pencil.

Outside of Belarus, the novel is being published in Belarusian for the first time. In this edition, we not only publish the exact text the author fought for during his lifetime, removing the corrections made for the 1968 edition. Guided by textual empathy, we make several important conjectures and thereby free the writer's voice from ideological pressure. We restore individual word forms that were unacceptable in Soviet times but are now perfectly commonplace — and it turns out Karatkevič wrote them that way! We restore the author's self-censored deletions: the man who wrote the novel was bold, but the one who submitted it for publication was rational. We have forgotten the names of those who made Karatkievič generic — and nobody's, by erasing "Belarus," "Belarusians," "Podnyaprie," and "Raka" from the text. And the words have once again taken their rightful place on the pages.

"Ears of Rye Under Your Sickle" — it is a journey not only to the eve of the 1863–1864 uprising, but also into the emotional world of a man who may not have been the first to notice the unjust sweeping of true Belarusian history under the rug, but was one of the first who could not, in good conscience, remain silent. The voices of his heroes, their fates, though idealized, could not and should not have been otherwise: only by restoring our fullness can we hope for a harmonious balance.