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  • Published: 1 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099461586
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $24.99

A Matter of Death and Life




'Kurkov is hugely talented. Truly very funny' -Time Out

Marital troubles? Sick of life? Suicide the answer? Why not get yourself a contract killer?

Nothing easier, provided you communicate only by phone and box number. You give him your photograph, specify when and where to find you, then sit back and prepare to die.

Murdered, you will be of greater interest than ever you were in life. More to him than met the eye will be the judgement. A mysterious killing lives long in the popular memory. Our hero meticulously plans his own demise, except for one detail: what if he suddenly decides he wants to live?

'Kurkov's eye for the absurdities of Ukrainian life is as sharp as ever' - Sunday Telegraph

  • Published: 1 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099461586
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

Andrey Kurkov

Andrey Kurkov was born in St Petersburg in 1961. Having graduated from the Kiev Foreign Languages Institute, he worked for some time as a journalist, did his military service as a prison warder in Odessa, then became a writer of screenplays and author of critically acclaimed and popular novels, including the bestselling Death and the Penguin. Kurkov has long been a respected commentator on Ukraine for the world’s media, notably in the UK, France, Germany and the States.

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Praise for A Matter of Death and Life

Kurkov's eye for the absurdities of Ukrainian life is as sharp as ever

Sunday Telegraph

A perfectly balanced read

Scotland on Sunday

There's a pleasing conceit at the dark heart of this novella

Metro

A brilliant black comedy

Evening Standard

Kurkov conjures up both Gogol and Dostoevsky... Genuinely original

<I>Scotsman

Kurkov is a fine satirist and a real, blackly comic find

<I>Observer

Kurkov's writing is highly addictive

<I>Punch

A dark humorous book that delivers Kurkov's best

Good Book Guide

Excellent... Blackly comic. Remarkable

New York Times