About the Author

Born near Leningrad in 1961, Andrey Kurkov was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay-writer before he became well known as a novelist. He received "hundreds of rejections" and was a pioneer of self-publishing, selling more than 75,000 copies of his books in a single year. His novel Death and the Penguin became an international bestseller, translated into more than thirty languages. As well as writing fiction for adults and children, he has become known as a commentator and journalist on Ukraine for the international media. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev was followed by the novels The Bickford Fuse, Grey Bees, and Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv (longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023), as well as his non-fiction work Diary of an Invasion (2022).

Reviews

Playful and ebullient, shot through with magical twists and supernatural turns . . . A reminder of Kurkov's prodigious storytelling gifts and a throwback to an earlier, happier age
*Observer*

This beguiling literary postcard from a recent, now supplanted past brims with the bittersweet charm and rueful satire of the books, such as Death and the Penguin, that established Kurkov's international reputation
*Financial Times*

Both a pleasure and a testament to life in Ukraine, before
*Sunday Times*

Entertaining and poignant . . . A multi-layered, Chagal-like picture of modern-day Ukraine.
*Glasgow Herald*

A craftily constructed novel that undermines and transforms itself in a consistently enjoyable manner without the haze of purple prose.
*Irish Times*

Charming . . . A love letter to Lviv, Ukraine's linguistic and cultural capital
*Guardian*

The characters are lovingly drawn and exude the sort of warmth with which the author imbues all of his creations. You enjoy the time spent in their company
*The Times*

Kurkov draws us with deceptive ease into a dense complex world full of wonderful characters
*Michael Palin*

A latter-day Bulgakov . . . A Ukrainian Murakami
*Guardian*

A post-Soviet Kafka
*Daily Telegraph*

A kind of Ukrainian Kurt Vonnegut
*Spectator*

Ukraine's greatest living novelist New European
*New European*