Andrei Yuyevich Kurkov was born on April 23 (Book and Sant Jordi Day) in Leningrad. Son of a test pilot and a doctor, he began writing at age seven when two of his three hamsters died and decided to dedicate a poem about loneliness to the survivor. At that time, one more fruit of his Soviet education, he still dedicated texts to Lenin. Later, he worked as a Japanese translator and that earned him a place in the KGB and in the police. At the time as a prison guard in Odessa, he wrote his first children's works. His first adult novel was published two weeks before the fall of the Soviet Union, thanks to his immersion in the world of desktop publishing and distribution (he himself organized the cast for Ukraine). Translated into thirty-seven languages, he has published nineteen novels, nine children's books and up to twenty television documentaries, as well as working as a commentator on Ukrainian reality in media around the world. His great success, Death with Penguin, where his black humor is mixed with the post-Soviet atmosphere, is a bestseller since its publication and also, his most emblematic novel.