WU0901 Grey Bees (Les Abeilles grises) by Andrey Kurkov

Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in the Grey Zone, the no-man’s-land between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists who have taken over the country’s east. Only two residents remain: beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, his “frenemy” from his schooldays. Sergey Sergeyich has survived the long Ukrainian winter, the street he lives on has no electricity, his meagre food stocks are dwindling and the villages in the area are deserted except for the few diehards who decide to stay.

Set in 2014 after the Russian invasion of Crimea and the start of the separatist war in Eastern Ukraine, Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees explores reality from Sergey’s point of view, looking at the plight of individuals caught in conflict, the solitude of war and the meaning of identity.

Grey Bees was awarded the 2022 National Book Critics Circle award for Translated Fiction; In France it received the 2022 Prix Médicis du roman étranger.

"Ukraine's most famous novelist unsparingly examines the inhuman confusions of our modern times and the longing of the warm-hearted everyman." -Financial Times.

"Le roman “Les Abeilles grises” est la lecture indispensable de ces temps de guerre. La littérature comme antidote à la barbarie et au désespoir." -Les Echos

Registrations Open May 13 2023.