Our Daily War

Andrey Kurkov’s urgent, humane and unforgettable war diaries continue in a poignant, personal account of life under siege in Ukraine – rich with humanity, dark humour, and unforgettable glimpses of resilience amidst devastation.

‘A vivid, moving and sometimes funny account of the reality of life during Russia's invasion’ Marc Bennetts, The Times

‘Uplifting and utterly defiant’ Matt Nixson, Daily Express

‘No one with the slightest interest in this war, or the nation on which it is being waged, should fail to read Andrey Kurkov’ Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail

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Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries continue: A profound and deeply personal chronicle of life under siege.

In this second volume of his acclaimed war diaries, Ukraine’s greatest living writer bears witness to a nation enduring the unendurable. From his home in Kyiv, Kurkov captures the surreal and the life-shattering: children learning algebra in metro stations turned bomb shelters, holidaymakers sunbathing on mined beaches, and farmers sowing fields shadowed by missile strikes.

On its eastern borders, Ukrainian citizens are put into “filtration camps”, en route to Russia … or to execution. To the north, Belarusian forces press refugees into service as mine detectors.

This is a lived account – rich with startling vignettes, dark humour and devastating detail – of a country adapting, resisting, surviving. A child downloads movies to a smartphone to watch during nightly power cuts. An elderly Japanese man feeds the hungry in Kharkiv. A soldier carefully rehomes a swarm of bees. A winemaker uses scrap wooden shell crates to package gift sets. A Ukrainian gunner inscribes messages on shells and rockets aimed for Russia: “For Bakhmut”, he writes. The family of a journalist killed in the Donbas sells their home to open a bookshop in his memory.

Our Daily War is Kurkov at his most intimate and insightful: a record of resilience, heartbreak and fierce national pride. Urgent, humane, unforgettable, this is history as it happens, and as only Kurkov can write it.

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PRAISE FOR ANDREY KURKOV’s WAR DIARIES

‘Clever, passionate’ Roger Boyes, The Times

‘Thoughtfulness nearly always prevails over anger; the pieces are flawlessly structured; the tone is devoid of self-pity’ Robin Ashenden, Spectator

‘Andrey Kurkov [is] one of the most articulate ambassadors to the West for the situation in his homeland’ Sam Leith, Spectator

 

‘Immediate and important. . . An insider's account of how an ordinary life became extraordinary. It is also about survival, hope and humanity’ Helen Davies, Sunday Times

‘Packed with surprising details about the human effects of the Russian assault … genial but also impassioned, never more so than when deploring Putin's efforts to erase Ukrainian culture and history’ Blake Morrison, Guardian

‘A thoughtful and humane memoir by one of Ukraine's most prominent living authors’ Simon Caterson, Sydney Morning Herald

‘Kurkov's diaries … make the early days of the war vivid for the reader. … Here are the kind of stories you don't see on the television news’ Rachel Cooke, Observer

‘It is little wonder … Kurkov, known for his keen eye for the absurdities of life, would pack his diary of the war with fascinating and eccentric details’Megan Gibson, New Statesman

‘Kurkov, an internationally-lauded novelist, is strongest when he writes on cultural matters. And this, he demonstrates convincingly, is a cultural war’ Ed O’Loughlin, Irish Times

‘With the sort of eye-witness detail missing from even the most rigorous newspaper account, this book makes for essential reading’ Claire Allfree, Metro

Andrey Kurkov was born near Leningrad in 1961, and graduated from Kyiv Pedagogical Academy of Foreign Languages in 1983. After working as a prison guard in Odesa and as a journalist, he self-published his writing and found renown as a novelist. His most recent novel, Grey Bees, tells the story of a lone beekeeper as he navigates the conflict in Eastern Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea. His novel Death and the Penguin, his first in English translation, is an international bestseller translated into more than thirty languages, and has been in print since its publication in 2001. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the author has issued unrivalled reports from his war-torn country in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Not only has he been a regular presence on radio and television, including BBC Radio 4's Letter from Ukraine, but he has travelled far and wide to lecture on the perilous state of his country. He has, in the process, become a crucial voice the people of Ukraine. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, was published in 2014, followed by Diary of an Invasion in 2022.