Description

‘Uplifting and utterly defiant’ Matt Nixson, Daily Express
‘Immediate and important … This is an insider’s account of how an ordinary life became extraordinary’ Helen Davies, The Times

This journal of the invasion, a collection of Andrey Kurkov’s writings and broadcasts from Kyiv, is a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of a 21st-century war.

Andrey Kurkov has been a consistent satirical commentator on his adopted country of Ukraine. His most recent work, Grey Bees, is a dark foreshadowing of the devastation in the eastern part of Ukraine in which only two villagers remain in a village bombed to smithereens. The author has lived in Kyiv and in the remote countryside of Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion. He has also been able to fly to European capitals where he has been working to raise money for charities and to address crowded halls. Kurkov has been asked to write for every English newspaper, as also to be interviewed all over Europe. He has become an important voice for his people.

Kurkov sees every video and every posted message, and he spends the sleepless nights of continuous bombardment of his city delivering the truth about this invasion to the world.

Publisher Review

PRAISE FOR GREY BEES: 'A latter-day Bulgakov ... A Ukrainian Murakami' Phoebe Taplin, Guardian. 'A post-Soviet Kafka' Colin Freeman, Daily Telegraph. 'Strange and mesmerising ... In spare prose, Ukraine's most famous novelist unsparingly examines the inhuman confusions of our modern times' John Thornhill, Financial Times. PRAISE FOR DEATH AND THE PENGUIN: 'A tragicomic masterpiece' Daily Telegraph. 'A black comedy of rare distinction' * Spectator *