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Diary of an Invasion
'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 o...
Our Daily War
"A vivid, moving and sometimes funny account of the reality of life during Russia's invasion," Marc Bennetts, The Times "Uplifting and utterly defiant," Matt Nixson, Daily Express "No-one with the slightest interest in this war, or the nation on which it is being waged, should fail to read Andrey Kurkov," Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail "For centuries, attempts have been made to force Ukrainians to forget their native language, to stop singing Ukrainian songs and to abandon their history. For almost 400 years, Russia has been fighting against Ukrainian identity." Ten years on from the annexation of Crimea, two years on from Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian people continue to fi...
A Matter of Death and Life
'Kurkov is hugely talented. Truly very funny' Time Out Marital troubles? Sick of life? Suicide the answer? Why not get yourself a contract killer? Nothing easier, provided you communicate only by phone and box number. You give him your photograph, specify when and where to find you, then sit back and prepare to die. Murdered, you will be of greater interest than ever you were in life. More to him than met the eye will be the judgement. A mysterious killing lives long in the popular memory. Our hero meticulously plans his own demise, except for one detail: what if he suddenly decides he wants to live?
The Case of the General's Thumb
'Kurkov is a fine satirist and a real, blackly comic, find' Observer Discover the international thriller, shot through with black satire and authentic detail, by one of Ukraine's most highly acclaimed authors. When the corpse of a distinguished general and presidential adviser is found, attached to an advertising balloon, lieutenant Viktor Slutsky is sent in to investigate. Meanwhile, KGB officer Nik Tsensky arrives in Kyiv for a secret mission. A larger-than-life hitman, bombs under furniture, a hearse, a deaf-and-dumb blonde, a tortoise and a parrot all play a part as Kurkov evokes a world of secret militia not seen before in Western fiction.
Grey Bees
Ukraine's most famous novelist dramatises the conflict raging in his country through the adventures of a mild-mannered beekeeper. "A warm and surprisingly funny book from Ukraine's greatest living novelist" Charlie Connelly, New European Books of the Year Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the war, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, his "frenemy" from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under ever-present threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he kno...
Penguin Lost
'Rich, authentic and entertaining' New Statesman Discover the darkly funny follow-up to cult classic Death and the Penguin Viktor - last seen in Death and the Penguin fleeing Mafia vengeance on an Antarctica-bound flight booked for Penguin Misha - seizes a heaven-sent opportunity to return to Kiev with a new identity. Clear now as to the enormity of abandoning Misha, then convalescent from a heart-transplant, Viktor determines to make amends. Viktor falls in with a Mafia boss who engages him to help in his election campaign, then introduces him to men who might further his search for Misha, said to be in a private zoo in Chechnya. What ensues is for Viktor both a quest and an odyssey of atonement, and, for the reader, an experience as rich, topical and illuminating as Death and the Penguin.
The Good Angel of Death
"When Kolya moves into a new flat in Kiev, he finds a book hidden within a volume of War and Peace. Intrigued by the annotations that appear on every page, Kolya sets out to discover more about the scribbler. His investigations take him to a graveyard, and more specifically to the coffin of a Ukrainian nationalist who died in mysterious circumstances and was buried with a sealed letter and a manuscript. An exhumation under cover of darkness reveals that an item of great national importance is buried near a fort in Kazakhstan. As nightwatchman at a baby-milk factory, Kolya exposes himself to the attentions of a criminal gang, and so he decides to leave Kiev for a while. Armed with only three cases of baby milk, which have unexpected hallucinogenic properties, he sets off on what turns out to be a very bizarre journey: crossing the Caspian Sea and traversing the deserts of Kazakhstan. He meets a host of unlikely characters on the way, including Bedouins, ex-KGB officers and a spirit-like companion in the form of a chameleon.."--Provided by publisher.
The Gardener from Ochakov
When Igor accidentally travels back to 1957, he finds out that the past isn't as rosy as it seems. In fact it's positively dangerous. Igor is confident his old Soviet policeman's uniform will be the best costume at the party. But he hasn't gone far before he realises something is wrong. The streets are unusually dark and empty, and the only person to emerge from the shadows runs away from him in terror. After a perplexing conversation with the terrified man, who turns out to be a wine smuggler, and on recovering from the resulting hangover, Igor comes to an unbelievable conclusion: he has found his way back to 1957 Kiev. And it isn't the innocent era his mother and her friends have so sentimentally described. As he travels between centuries, his life becomes more and more complicated. The unusual gardener who lives in his mother's shed keeps disappearing, his best friend has blackmailed the wrong people, and Igor has fallen in love with a married woman in a time before he was born. With his mother's disapproval at his absences growing, and his adventures in each time frame starting to catch up with him, Igor has to survive the past if he wants any kind of future.
The Stolen Heart
Samson Kolechko has been assigned a most perplexing case - though it is mostly perplexing because it's hard to understand why selling the meat of one's own pig constitutes a crime. But apparently it does, and at the insistence of the Chekist secret police officer assigned to "reinforce" the Lybid police station, Samson does his diligent - if diffident - best. Yet no sooner has he got started than his live-in fiancée Nadezhda is abducted by striking railway workers who object to the census she's carrying out. And when you factor in a mysterious thief in the police station itself, a deadly tram accident that may have been pre-meditated, and the potential reappearance of the culprit in the cas...
Death and the Penguin
Viktor is an aspiring writer with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company. Although he would prefer to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see his work published, yet the subjects of his obituaries continue to cling to life. But when he opens the newspaper to see his work in print for the first time, his pride swiftly turns to terror. He and Misha have been drawn into a trap from which there appears to be no escape.
