About the Author Ukrainian writer writing in Russian. Andrey Kurkov was born in St Petersburg in 1961. He started writing at the age of six and he had a hobby of collecting cactuses. He collected nearly 1,500 of them. Ambitiously he wanted to learn their latin names. Thanks to that he had learned such languages such as English, French, Japanease, Georgian and Polish. He became a Japanese trained translator. 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 film cameraman, writer of screenplays and author of critically acclaimed and popular novels. Buy the Book
“So many words apply. Quirky. Dry. Charming. Grimly existential. Deceptively simple. Funny. Bizarre. Sad. Engaging.” -St. Louis Magazine Buy the Book
About the Book In the widely hailed prequel to Penguin Lost, aspiring writer Viktor Zolotaryov leads a down-and-out life in poverty-and-violence-wracked Kiev—he’s out of work and his only friend is a penguin, Misha, that he rescued when the local zoo started getting rid of animals. Even more nerve-wracking: a local mobster has taken a shine to Misha and wants to keep borrowing him for events. But Viktor thinks he’s finally caught a break when he lands a well-paying job at the Kiev newspaper writing “living obituaries” of local dignitaries—articles to be filed for use when the time comes. The only thing is, it seems the time always comes as soon as Viktor writes the article. Slowly understanding that his own life may be in jeopardy, Viktor also realizes that the only thing that might be keeping him alive is his penguin.
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Reviews
So many words apply. Quirky. Dry. Charming. Grimly existential. Deceptively simple. Funny. Bizarre. Sad. Engaging. Granted, many of these words contradict each other. But when a prison guard in Odessa starts writing children’s stories and then turns to adult mysteries— and they’re set in Russia and the counterpoint to their angst and violence is a pet penguin—categories dissolve. Death and the Penguin is the first in the series. And Andrey Kurkov had me in the
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