Ukraine Diaries

-16C, sunlight, silence. I drove the children to school, then went to see the revolution. I walked between the tents. Talked with rev­olutionaries. They were weary today. The air was thick with the smell of old campfires. Ukraine Diaries is acclaimed writer Andrey Kurkov's first-hand account of the ongoing crisis in his country. From his flat in Kiev, just five hundred yards from Independence Square, Kurkov can smell the burning barricades and hear the sounds of grenades and gunshot. Kurkov's diaries begin on the first day of the pro-European protests in November, and describe the violent clashes in the Maidan, the impeachment of Yanukovcyh, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the separatist uprisings in the east of Ukraine. Going beyond the headlines, they give vivid insight into what it's like to live through - and try to make sense of - times of intense political unrest.

About the author

Andrey Kurkov is a writer, journalist, and the current president of PEN Ukraine. He 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 U.K., France, Germany, and the United States.Sam Taylor is an award-winning literary translator and novelist. He has translated more than 60 books from French including Laurent Binet's HHhH and Leila Slimani's Lullaby.

Summary

Going beyond the headlines, this title gives an insight into what it's like to live through - and try to make sense of - times of intense political unrest.

Report

Andrey Kurkov's Ukraine Diaries offer a unique personal insight into one of the world's most complex trouble spots. The fact that Kurkov lives in the heart of Kiev, and the fact that he can write so well, give an eloquence and immediacy to his account of day to day life in the teeth of a crisis. This is history, with feeling Michael Palin

Product details

• Authors: Andrey Kurkov, Andrej Kurkow
• Assisted by: Sam Taylor (Translation)
• Publisher: Harvill Secker
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.07.2014
• EAN: 9781846559471
• ISBN: 978-1-84655-947-1
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 198 mm x 20 mm
• Series: HARVILL SECKER
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies; Ukraine, Russia, True war & combat stories, Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions, Revolutionary groups & movements, True war and combat stories, c 2010 to c 2019, Political oppression & persecution, Political oppression and persecution, Revolutionary groups and movements