Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov

Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov is such a good book. Andrey was born in russia, but he feels Ukrainian. He wrote a few books so far and, while this is the first book I read by him it will not be the last. This book is about the first few months after russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I found fascinating the things he talks about, everyday life that I would have never considered. For example, he talks about the tube in Kharkiv, where some people lost their pets while they were sheltering, and the need to search for them before the return of the tube services. This is just a small mention in a paragraph, but it shows the sort of things we, living outside a war zone, could not understand because we were never faced with this kind of issues.

His writing is beautiful and fluid. I think this is a wonderful book, not too negative, not too positive, just showing what is happening and his reflections on the situation in Ukraine and beyond. He talks about language, as he is an ethnic russian and russian is his first language. He talks about how people change their language, about culture and what it represents.

The first 100 pages of the book, so 1/3 are about Ukraine before the war, telling stories that I found fascinating, like how many people were buying books. He talks about his neighbours and how close they were, talks about growing veggies and spices, writing, his family. I enjoyed the book a lot, so do read it if you have the opportunity.

Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov

Details about the picture: I took the picture on one of my T-shirts from Ukraine
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: 2022
Year it was published: Mountain Leopard Press
Format: Hardcover
Genre(s): Memoir
Pages: 304

About the author: Andrei Kurkov is a russian-born Ukrainian writer. He wrote in russian (fiction) and Ukrainian (non-fiction).
Kurkov was born in small town of Budogoszcz, on 23 April 1961. When Kurkov was young, his family moved to Kyiv, Ukraine. In 1983 Kurkov graduated Kyiv Pedagogical Academy of Foreign Languages and later also completed a Japanese translation training.
Among Kurkov’s most famous Russian novels are ‘Smert postoronnego’ (1996, translated into English in 2001 under the title ‘Death and the Penguin’) and ‘Zakon ulitki’ (2002, translated into English in 2005 under the title ‘Penguin lost)’. Kurkov’s only Ukrainian non-fiction book is ‘Ruh “Emanus”: istoriya solidarnosti’ (2017).
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