Grey Bees

 

By Andrey Kurkov

Boris Dralyuk (Translator)

Published by Deep Vellum Publishing

April 8, 2022
360 Pages

ISBN-10:1646051661

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1646051663

Review by Darcia Hasey

For those of us who live a comfortable way of life away from the sounds and confusion of war, Grey Bees, Andrey Kurkov’s 2018 novel set in eastern Ukraine’s Grey Zone, allows us to immerse ourselves in an atmosphere of constant threat of bombardment from either the loyalists or the separatist forces. This is all captured through the eyes of his protagonist Sergey Sergeyich whose life and experiences are of a simple kind, where he is puttering along somewhat indifferently to all that goes on around him. There is little food, no electricity and only one other resident to talk to, his frienemy from his schooldays, Pashka Khmelenko.

What keeps Sergeyich focused are his bees. After years as a safety inspector in the Donbas mines, he has now retired and his bees and their care have become his one remaining pleasure. After a cold winter he itches to move his bees to sunnier climes where there is no war and they can collect their pollen in peace. His adventures along the way outside the Grey Zone open his eyes to the changes, not only in the rules and regulations he needs to follow, but in the attitudes of the people he meets, all the while trying to do the right thing and hoping humanity shows its face in the midst of all this conflict and chaos.

This novel is Kurkov’s acknowledgment of the thousands of people caught in these Grey Zones. He wanted to give a voice to these people to whom war had failed to force them from their homes. He does this not only with warmth and humour but also with the acknowledgement that war does terrible things.

Kurkov’s translator, Boris Dralyuk, does a brilliant job of translating the Russian into English making this a most gripping novel.