6 January 2025
I remember reading about the Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov's satirical black comic novel 'Death and the Penguin' many years ago but I've only just got around to reading it. Originally published in 1996 (with the English translation appearing in 2001) it's a quirky, bleak, political satire of life in post Soviet Ukraine. The protagonist, writer Viktor Zolotaryov, feels a bit like Winston Smith in '1984', living a bland existence, not entirely sure what is going on and in constant fear of the authorities. Invited to write obituaries for a newspaper, he becomes naively embroiled in a ring of corruption and murder. But, while stuck in a strange limbo, he randomly collects an array of friends, including some genuinely charming relationships which reminded me of Amor Towles' 'A Gentleman in Moscow' (reviewed here in September 2021). 'Death and the Penguin' is an odd tale, funnier for carefully rooting its oddest aspects in a meticulously accurate reality.
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