Grey Bees, Andrey Kurkov
Grey Bees, Andrey Kurkov
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Grey Bees

Author: Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk

Narrator: Andrew Byron

Unabridged: 11 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/27/2022


Synopsis

With a warm yet political humor, Ukraine's most famous novelist presents a balanced and illuminating portrait of modern conflict.

Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich, and Pashka, a rival from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under constant threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace. This simple mission on their behalf introduces him to combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle lines: loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers, and Crimean Tatars. Wherever he goes, Sergeyich's childlike simplicity and strong moral compass disarm everyone he meets. But could these qualities be manipulated to serve an unworthy cause, spelling disaster for him, his bees and his country?

About Andrey Kurkov

Born near Leningrad in 1961, Andrey Kurkov was a journalist, prison warder, camera-man, 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 work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, was published in 2014, followed by the novel The Bickford Fuse. He lives in Kiev with his British wife and their three children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by s.penkevich on April 02, 2023

**Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award** ‘This too is holy work, after all – to brighten man’s life in dark times.’ In 2014, armed Russian-backed separatists began seizing government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk and fighting Ukrainian forces, turning the Donbas into a grey zone. This i......more

Goodreads review by Siobhán on September 25, 2024

A brilliant novel about a beekeeper living in the grey zone controlled by Ukraine / occupied by Russia. You learn a lot about bees (all correct, beekeeper speaking here) but also about Ukraine, the population (that is not just white and Christian!!!), politics, and the entire conflict (now war). Dub......more

Goodreads review by Elena on February 27, 2022

Sergej Sergejitsch lebt im Donbass, in einem kleinen Dorf in der sogenannten Grauen Zone, im Kampfgebiet zwischen der ukrainischen Armee und prorussischen Separatisten. Von den ehemaligen Dorfbewohner*innen sind nur noch er und sein Feindfreund Paschko übrig - und natürlich die Bienen von Sergej. Ei......more

Goodreads review by Clare on September 21, 2021

A beautiful story. I could have stayed with Sergey the beekeeper indefinitely as he pottered around in his humble home in the war zone, fixing meals, looking after his bees, dreaming strange dreams and being kind to others. Such a gentle, passive character who somehow manages to show more human dece......more