Andrey Kurkov, born near Leningrad in 1961, was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay-writer before he became well known as a novelist. He received “hundreds of rejections” and was a pioneer of self-publishing, selling more than 75,000 copies of his books in a single year. His novel Death and the Penguin, his first in English translation, became an international bestseller, translated into more than thirty languages. As well as writing fiction for adults and children, he has become known as a commentator and journalist on Ukraine for the international media. His works of reportage include Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev (2014) followed by Diary of An Invasion (2022). His most recent novel is Grey Bees (2018). He lives in Kyiv with his British wife and their three children.