Literary programme
Andrei Kurkov – “Three Years of Fire” / “Samson and Nadezhda”
Andrey Kurkov’s unsparing, deeply human portrait of a nation reshaped by war. In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. Four and a half years have passed since then. Andrey Kurkov’s journalistic writings, notes and diary entries chronicle the experiences of Ukrainians during the third year of the war – written in his home city of Kyiv and during his travels across Ukraine and Europe. Kurkov describes moments of horror, resilience, absurdity and poverty. He captures a state of emergency that has become everyday life: children allowed to attend school only in bulletproof vests; soldiers writing haiku; a general’s seventeen-year-old toad becoming an iconic symbol of defiance. And beneath a cherry tree, the final diary of a murdered writer is unearthed – a powerful echo of a voice that was silenced. From the home front to the trenches, Andrey Kurkov captures the rhythms of survival: the quiet rituals, the unlikely moments of joy, and the terrible cost.
People lose people. Every single day. So much has been destroyed – entire homes, entire cities – yet the determination of Ukrainians remains unbroken. Kurkov brings individual human destinies into focus, along with the struggle of Ukrainians to preserve their lives and culture. He writes about historical continuities and, not least, about faith in hope and in the future of a free Ukraine.
On Samson and Nadezhda:
Kiev, 1919. The Bolsheviks have taken over the city and chaos reigns. In a weather of looting and daily murder, young Samson Kolechko loses his father and an ear at the hands of the Cossacks, and almost by accident becomes chief of the soviet police. His first dangerous case, which features a severed ear, a silver bone, and a suit of unusual size and exquisite English fabric, will immerse him into Kiev’s mayhem and into the arms of Nadezhda, a fiery Bolshevik Samson will not be able to walk away from. With classic flair, full of twists, humor, and ingenuity, the new novel by the “best Ukrainian novelist alive” (New European) adds Samson Kolechko to the cast of great contemporary detectives, such as Quirke or Verhoeven.
“A post-soviet Kafka.” —Daily Telegraph
Moderation: Maya Dimerli
