Andrey Kurkov and Simona Škrabec

After years of latent conflict, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has now laid bare the wounds that have carried over from the complex past of the region, while also drawing attention to the game of geopolitical strategies that both Russia and Western Europe have been playing in recent decades. The escalation of a war that is unprecedented in the recent history of Europe has fuelled a new arms race and also threatens energy provision and food supply at the global level. Meanwhile, as in any other war, the people are the ones who are suffering the irreversible consequences while the search for solutions drags on forever. What options are there for the conflict to be resolved soon? How can we support Ukraine?

Andrey Kurkov, the internationally acclaimed Ukrainian author whose works have been translated into more than thirty languages, has used literature and humour to tell the story of his country. His novels Death and the Penguin, 1994 (in Spanish, Muerte con pingüino, Blackie Books, 2017), and Grey Bees, 2018 (in Spanish Abejas grimes, Alfaguara, 2022) are portraits of everyday life in a country riven with conflict. Today, as Ukraine is dealing with the Russian invasion, Kurkov wonders whether it is possible to write in such a situation and what role fiction might have in trying to transform today’s difficult circumstances. In this session he speaks with the writer and translator, Simona Škrabec.