The Writer’s Way: A Conversation with Andrey Kurkov

Date: 22 November 2025
Time: 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Venue: Main Hall, Balliol College

Join us for an afternoon with Andrey Kurkov, one of Ukraine’s most celebrated contemporary writers, for a conversation about the writer’s life, writer's daily routine, and creative discipline.Kurkov will reflect on his personal journey as an author, how he came to writing, what his everyday work looks like, and how discipline and imagination coexist in his creative process.

The discussion will explore how routine can nurture creativity, and how a writer’s inner rhythm can become both refuge and resistance in times of uncertainty.This event will be of particular interest to students of creative writing and modern literature, as well as to anyone fascinated by the connection between life, habit, and art. Kurkov’s reflections will open a window into the quiet, persistent work of shaping stories from reality and memory.

Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer, journalist, and the current president of PEN Ukraine. Born in St Petersburg in 1961, he grew up and was educated in Kyiv, graduating from the Kyiv Institute of Foreign Languages. After serving in the army as a Pr*son warder in Odesa, he worked as a journalist and later as a screenwriter before becoming a full-time novelist.Kurkov is the author of numerous critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling novels, including Death and the Penguin, The President’s Last Love, and Grey Bees. His works have been translated into more than forty languages. In addition to his fiction, Kurkov is a respected commentator on Ukrainian society and politics, frequently contributing to leading media outlets in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States.Through irony, empathy, and quiet humour, his writing captures the contradictions of post-Soviet life and the moral resilience of individuals in times of upheaval.

Organised by the Oxford University Ukrainian Society and the Oxford Brookes Ukrainian Society.The event is free and open to everybody but registration in required.

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