Ukraine’s most famous novelist spends an evening exploring his new book, Grey Bees- a dramatization of the conflict raging in his country through the lens of a mild-mannered beekeeper.

A timely treatment of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, the book illuminates one of the most bewildering of modern conflicts with Kurkov’s signature humour, imagination and sensitivity.

Presented in collaboration with Frontline Online.

Copies of the book will be available to purchase after the event.

Speakers: 

Andrey Kurkov was born in St Petersburg in 1961. Having graduated from the Kiev Foreign Languages Institute, he worked for some time as a journalist, did his military service as a prison warder in Odessa, then became a writer of screenplays and author of critically acclaimed and popular novels, including the bestselling Death and the Penguin. Kurkov has long been a respected commentator on Ukraine for the world’s media, notably in the UK, France, Germany and the States.

Kelly Falconer is the founder of the Asia Literary Agency, representing award-winning Asian authors, experts on Asia and writers living in the Australia-Asia region. Before founding the agency she was an editor of fiction and non-fiction, working for book publishers in London, and was the literary editor of the Hong Kong-based Asia Literary Review in 2012. She has contributed to the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) and the Spectator, and has a background as a Korean cryptologic linguist.