Like many successful writers, Kurkov had difficulty getting his first publishing contract.

While organising distribution around Ukraine, he would also sell copies by hand from stalls on busy streets. Borrowing money from friends to fund his work, Kurkov managed to publish independently. His first novel was published two weeks before the fall of the Soviet Union, and in the ensuing social and political turmoil he made the first steps towards self-publishing and distribution. It was during this period that Kurkov wrote all of his children's stories. He was assigned a prison guard position in Odessa. This offered him a greater degree of freedom during and after his service period. However, he managed to get his papers changed to service with the military police. Having graduated in 1983 from the Kyiv Foreign Languages Institute, and as a trained Japanese translator Kurkov was assigned military service assisting the KGB.

He also produced poetry about Lenin, purportedly inspired by his Soviet education at the time. He started writing at the age of seven when, after the death of two of his three pet hamsters, he wrote a poem about the loneliness of the remaining pet. When he was just 2 his family relocated to Kyiv in connection with his father's work. Kurkov's father was a test pilot and his mother was a doctor. With his mother’s disapproval at his absences growing, and his adventures in each time frame starting to catch up with him, Igor has to survive the past if he wants any kind of future.Kurkov on the cover of Culture and Life magazine in 2016 The unusual gardener who lives in his mother’s shed keeps disappearing, his best friend has blackmailed the wrong people, and Igor has fallen in love with a married woman in a time before he was born.

And it isn’t the innocent era his mother and her friends have so sentimentally described.Īs he travels between centuries, his life becomes more and more complicated. The streets are unusually dark and empty, and the only person to emerge from the shadows runs away from him in terror.Īfter a perplexing conversation with the terrified man, who turns out to be a wine smuggler, and on recovering from the resulting hangover, Igor comes to an unbelievable conclusion: he has found his way back to 1957 Kiev. But he hasn’t gone far before he realises something is wrong. Igor is confident his old Soviet policeman’s uniform will be the best costume at the party.

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