Death and the Penguin

by Andrey Kurkov

Overview

A devastating satire of the worlds of mafia and media, politics and penguins — in the tradition of the master of twentieth-century satire, Mikhail Bulgakov.

Victor is depressed: his lover has dumped him, his short stories are too short, and the light has gone off in his dingy apartment. His only companion is Misha, the penguin he rescued from Kiev's zoo, when it couldn't feed the animals anymore. Misha is the silent witness to Victor's despair. Misha joins in his celebration — fish and vodka — when Victor's luck seems to turn: he is commissioned to write obituaries under the pen name "A Group of Friends." The weird thing is that the editor wants him to select subjects who are still alive, the movers and shakers of the new, post-Communist society. Pleased with Victor's work, the editor sends him his friend, also named Misha (from then onward known as Misha-non-penguin), who commissions Victor to write an obituary about one of his shady associates. After a job well done, Misha-non-penguin and Victor get drunk on vodka and Victor confesses that he is frustrated as an obituary writer: his subjects refuse to die. The next morning his most prominent one, a corrupt politician with Mafia ties and a mistress, is dead. The tide has turned.

Andrey Kurkov was born in Leningrad in 1961. He now lives in Ukraine. He has written novels and children's books, and works with European companies in the making of films, including ones from his own scripts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781860469459
Publisher:	Random House UK
Publication date:	11/28/2001
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Andrey Kurkov, born in St. Petersburg in 1961, now lives in Kiev. Having graduated from the Kiev Foreign Languages Institute, he worked for some time as a journalist, did his military service as a prison warder at Odessa, then became a film cameraman, writer of screenplays, and author of critically acclaimed and popular novels. He is the author of Penguin Lost, a sequel to Death and the Penguin, and The Case of the General's Thumb.

George Bird has translated extensively from German and Russian. In 1986 he won the Pluto Crime Prize for his novel Death in Leningrad.

Editorial Reviews

Kurkov demonstrates that nowadays one is allowed to tell fresh new stories in Russia again: intelligent and funny.

Thomas Grob

Andrey Kurkov is often called Ukraine’s greatest living writer, and it is a gift for crime fiction fans that he writes in this genre. (Read “Death and the Penguin” and its sequels — they are a delight.)” - The New York Times

"No summary can do justice to the strange appeal of this unusual, short book, which is at once a crime novel, a comic novel and a serious political satire on contemporary Ukraine." —Anne Applebaum, The Wall Street Journal

"Death and the Penguin comes across as an almost perfect little novel ... fast-paced and witty and on the side of the angels." —John Powers, NPR's Fresh Air

“Pathos and humor shine through to make this a black comedy of rare distinction, and the penguin is an invention of genius.” —The Spectator

“A striking portrait of post-Soviet isolation. . . . In this bleak moral landscape Kurkov manages to find ample refuge for his dark humor.” —The New York Times

"No summary can do justice to the strange appeal of this unusual, short book, which is at once a crime novel, a comic novel and a serious political satire on contemporary Ukraine." —Anne Applebaum, The Wall Street Journal 

“Delicious... when Viktor finally finds Misha it is as if Woody Allen had gone to meet Kurtz.” —The Spectator

“The deadpan tone works perfectly, and it will be a hard-hearted reader who is not touched by Viktor’s relationship with his unusual pet.” —The Times (London)

"Misha, the most memorable character of his thriller Death and the Penguin, left web-footed prints all over my imagination" —NPR

“I loved the f*ck out of it.” —Paul Constant, The Stranger

“Death and the Penguin successfully balances the social awkwardness of Woody Allen, the absurd clashes of Jean-Luc Godard and the escalating paranoia of Franz Kafka.”  —Vikas Turakias, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

From the Publisher