Grey Bees Audiobook By Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk - translator cover art

Grey Bees

A captivating, heartwarming story about a gentle beekeeper caught up in the war in Ukraine

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Grey Bees

By: Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk - translator
Narrated by: Andrew Byron
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $23.99

Buy for $23.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Ukraine's most famous novelist dramatises the conflict raging in his country through the adventures of a mild-mannered beekeeper. From the author of the bestselling Death and the Penguin.

Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a 'frenemy' from his schooldays.

With little food and no electricity, under ever-present threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace. This simple mission on their behalf introduces him to combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle lines: loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers and Crimean Tatars. Wherever he goes, Sergeyich's childlike simplicity and strong moral compass disarm everyone he meets.

But could these qualities be manipulated to serve an unworthy cause, spelling disaster for him, his bees and his country?

Grey Bees is as timely as the author's Ukraine Diaries were in 2014, but treats the unfolding crisis in a more imaginative way, with a pinch of Kurkov's signature humour. Who better than Ukraine's most famous novelist—who writes in Russian—to illuminate and present a balanced portrait of this most bewildering of modern conflicts?

Translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk.

Boris Dralyuk is an award-winning translator and the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He taught Russian literature for a number of years at UCLA and at the University of St Andrews. He is a co-editor (with Robert Chandler and Irina Mashinski) of the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry, and has translated Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories, as well as Kurkov's The Bickford Fuse. In 2020 he received the inaugural Kukula Award for Excellence in Non-fiction Book Reviewing from the Washington Monthly.

With the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

©2020 Andrey Kurkov (P)2022 Quercus Editions Limited
Friendship Literary Fiction Russia Small Town & Rural
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"A latter-day Bulgakov... A Ukrainian Murakami." (Phoebe Taplin, Guardian)

What listeners say about Grey Bees

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.