Description

“A bittersweet relic of a sunnier age . . . . A joyous caper . . . playful and ebullient, shot through with magical twists and supernatural turns.”—Observer

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize, a Murakami-esque ode to the revered cultural capital of western Ukraine, filled with a charming cast of eccentrics who together make up the beating heart of the city.

Strange, almost magical, things are afoot in Lviv. Seagulls circle overhead while the passing breeze carries a briny whiff, even though the coast is far away. A ragtag group of aging hippies gather around a mysterious grave in Lychakiv Cemetery. Among them are an ex-KGB officer and the old subversive he once spied upon. Soon, Captain Ryabtsev and Alik Olisevych band together to uncover the source of the city's “anomalies.”

Meanwhile, across Lviv, Taras, a cab driver, ferries kidney-stone patients over cobblestone streets in his ancient Opel Vectra. He’s wooing Darka, a woman who works nights at a currency exchange. The young lovers don’t know it, but their fate depends on the two lonely old men, relics of a bygone era, who will stop at nothing to save their city.

Blending Shakespearean comedy with Andrey Kurkov's unique brand of black humor and vodka-fueled magic realism, Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, is a postcard from a more optimistic era. Populated by a delightful cast of oddballs, Kurkov's novel is an affectionate snapshot of a country finding itself and reclaiming its lost dreams twenty years after Soviet rule.

Translated from the Russian by Reuben Woolley

About the Author

Andrey Kurkov was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman, and screenplay writer before finding international renown as a novelist. His books include the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Grey Bees,  the 2023 International Booker longlisted Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, and the international bestseller Death and the Penguin. In addition to his fiction for adults and children, he has become a commentator and journalist reporting on Ukraine for the international media. He lives in Kyiv with his wife and their three children. 

Praise For…

"A bittersweet relic of a sunnier age ... [Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv is] playful and ebullient, shot through with magical twists and supernatural turns... [a] joyous caper." — The Observer

"Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv brims with the bittersweet charm and rueful satire of the books . . . that established Kurkov's international reputation." — Financial Times

"Charming. . . . A love letter to Lviv, Ukraine's linguistic and cultural capital." — The Guardian

The escapades of Andrey Kurkov’s loveable eccentrics provide a frame for an intriguing portrait of Lviv in the 2000s, a melancholy borderland city that finds itself recalling a troubled past as it sits on the cusp of an uncertain future. — Jury of The International Booker Prize