John Murray
Koyla’s Odyssey
The Good Angel of Death
By Andrey Kurkov (Translated by Andrew Bromfield)
Harvill Secker 376pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
Andrey Kurkov achieved international fame with his mesmerising ‘penguin’ novels Death and the Penguin and Penguin Lost, both of which have appeared in translation over the last decade. These mordant parables about post-Soviet corruption in his native Ukraine feature the same hapless Kiev hero Viktor and his beloved pet penguin Misha, both of them compelling emblems of innocence in a violent, cynical and Mafia-ridden society.
Instead of recognising Kurkov’s originality as a writer, most British critics have rushed to make easy comparisons with Bulgakov, Gogol and Dostoyevsky. It is hardly insulting Kurkov to say that he is not in the same league as the two nineteenth-century giants, and unlike all three of these
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'"The Last Colony" is, among other things, part of the campaign to shift the British position through political pressure. As with all good propaganda, Sands’s case is based in truth, if not the whole of it.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/empire-strikes-back
'To her enemies she was the alien temptress who led Charles I away from the "true religion" of Protestantism and towards royal absolutism.'
Lucy Hughes-Hallett reviews @LeandadeLisle's 'colourful', 'persuasive' new biography of Henrietta Maria.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/royalist-generalissima
'Empathy is our moral portal gun, and it jams from underuse.'
Don Paterson on Portal 2, catching Covid on the Eurostar, and rereading Ian Hamilton’s 'Against Oblivion'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/portal-agony