ANDREY KURKOV

Born near Leningrad, Andrey was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay-writer before becoming a novelist. His novel Death and the Penguin became an international bestseller, translated into more than 30 languages. As well as writing fiction for adults and children, he is a prominent commentator and journalist on Ukraine for the international media. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev (2014) was followed by the novels The Bickford Fuse, Grey Bees, and Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv (longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023), and further non-fiction Diary of an Invasion (2022). As well as travelling the world to raise support for Ukraine, he lives in Kyiv with his British wife Elizabeth. They have 3 grown-up children.

FEATURED BOOK: The Silver Bone: the Kyiv Mysteries, first in a trilogy of historical mysteries set during the Russian Revolution, tr. Boris Dralyuk, MacLehose, 2024. Our Daily War, reportage, written in English, Open Borders Press, an imprint of Orenda Books, July 2024.

Image credits @EamonnMcCabe