Three Years On Fire
The Destruction of Ukraine
Published on 20. November 2025
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-916788-79-4 (ISBN)
Description
The third volume of Kurkov’s critically acclaimed, intimate and deeply moving war diaries: a poignant, personal account of life under siege in Ukraine – rich with humanity, dark humour, and unforgettable resilience amidst devastation.
“Clever, passionate” The Times
“The pieces are flawlessly structured; the tone is devoid of self-pity … Yet saturating the book is a note of savage black comedy, the farce of a world made weird by unimaginable violence” Spectator
“Uplifting and utterly defiant” Daily Express
“No-one with the slightest interest in this war, or the nation on which it is being waged, should fail to read Andrey Kurkov” Daily Mail
______
Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries continue – a searing, deeply human portrait of a nation reshaped by war.
In this third volume of Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries, Ukraine’s greatest living writer chronicles the third year of the full-scale invasion from his home in Kyiv and from journeys all over the country – capturing moments of horror, resilience, absurdity and grace with unmatched clarity.
Children on a contested border wear hooded bulletproof vests to school; soldiers write haiku; professional clowns go to war; and the mother of a young soldier, killed in battle, uses his compensation money to create a rehabilitation centre for veterans. Roses bloom across Ukraine in quiet tribute to a florist and soldier killed in Avdiivka, remembered by those who once bought his flowers.
The Dnipro River seems to slow when the first missiles fall, as though nature itself had paused in shock. In Pokrovsk, 7,500 residents refuse to leave a city that no longer exists – their homes obliterated but their will unbroken. A general’s seventeen-year-old pet toad becomes an iconic symbol of defiance. And buried beneath a cherry tree, a murdered writer’s final diary is recovered, a haunting echo of a silenced voice.
From the home front to the trenches, Kurkov captures the rhythms of survival – the quiet rituals, unlikely joys, unexpected humour and appalling costs – in an intimate and deeply moving record of national endurance. Three Years on Fire is a luminous act of remembrance, rich with unforgettable detail and human spirit, from a writer whose voice stands witness to everything Ukraine has lost – and everything it refuses to give up.
From the international bestselling author of The Stolen Heart, Death and the Penguin and The Grey Bees
______
Praise for Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries
“Andrey Kurkov [is] one of the most articulate ambassadors to the West for the situation in his homeland,” Sam Leith, Spectator
“Immediate and important … From the grim incredulity at Russians massing on the border to the displacement of millions of people, this is an insider's account of how an ordinary life became extraordinary. It is also about survival, hope and humanity,” Helen Davies, The Times
“Ukraine’s greatest novelist is fighting for his country,” Giles Harvey, New York Times
“The author's on-the-ground account is packed with surprising details about the human effects of the Russian assault ... His voice is genial but also impassioned, never more so than when deploring Putin's efforts to erase Ukrainian culture and history. Ukraine, he says, ‘will either be free, independent and European, or it will not exist at all’. That's why the war has to be fought, with no concession of territory. And he remains quietly hopeful that it will be won,” Blake Morrison, Guardian
“Clever, passionate” The Times
“The pieces are flawlessly structured; the tone is devoid of self-pity … Yet saturating the book is a note of savage black comedy, the farce of a world made weird by unimaginable violence” Spectator
“Uplifting and utterly defiant” Daily Express
“No-one with the slightest interest in this war, or the nation on which it is being waged, should fail to read Andrey Kurkov” Daily Mail
______
Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries continue – a searing, deeply human portrait of a nation reshaped by war.
In this third volume of Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries, Ukraine’s greatest living writer chronicles the third year of the full-scale invasion from his home in Kyiv and from journeys all over the country – capturing moments of horror, resilience, absurdity and grace with unmatched clarity.
Children on a contested border wear hooded bulletproof vests to school; soldiers write haiku; professional clowns go to war; and the mother of a young soldier, killed in battle, uses his compensation money to create a rehabilitation centre for veterans. Roses bloom across Ukraine in quiet tribute to a florist and soldier killed in Avdiivka, remembered by those who once bought his flowers.
The Dnipro River seems to slow when the first missiles fall, as though nature itself had paused in shock. In Pokrovsk, 7,500 residents refuse to leave a city that no longer exists – their homes obliterated but their will unbroken. A general’s seventeen-year-old pet toad becomes an iconic symbol of defiance. And buried beneath a cherry tree, a murdered writer’s final diary is recovered, a haunting echo of a silenced voice.
From the home front to the trenches, Kurkov captures the rhythms of survival – the quiet rituals, unlikely joys, unexpected humour and appalling costs – in an intimate and deeply moving record of national endurance. Three Years on Fire is a luminous act of remembrance, rich with unforgettable detail and human spirit, from a writer whose voice stands witness to everything Ukraine has lost – and everything it refuses to give up.
From the international bestselling author of The Stolen Heart, Death and the Penguin and The Grey Bees
______
Praise for Andrey Kurkov’s war diaries
“Andrey Kurkov [is] one of the most articulate ambassadors to the West for the situation in his homeland,” Sam Leith, Spectator
“Immediate and important … From the grim incredulity at Russians massing on the border to the displacement of millions of people, this is an insider's account of how an ordinary life became extraordinary. It is also about survival, hope and humanity,” Helen Davies, The Times
“Ukraine’s greatest novelist is fighting for his country,” Giles Harvey, New York Times
“The author's on-the-ground account is packed with surprising details about the human effects of the Russian assault ... His voice is genial but also impassioned, never more so than when deploring Putin's efforts to erase Ukrainian culture and history. Ukraine, he says, ‘will either be free, independent and European, or it will not exist at all’. That's why the war has to be fought, with no concession of territory. And he remains quietly hopeful that it will be won,” Blake Morrison, Guardian
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
332 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-916788-79-4 (9781916788794)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Andrey Kurkov was born near Leningrad in 1961, and graduated from Kyiv Pedagogical Academy of Foreign Languages in 1983. After working as a prison guard in Odesa and as a journalist, he self-published his writing and found renown as a novelist. His most recent novel, Grey Bees, tells the story of a lone beekeeper as he navigates the conflict in Eastern Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea. His novel Death and the Penguin, his first in English translation, is an international bestseller translated into more than thirty languages, and has been in print since its publication in 2001. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the author has issued unrivalled reports from his war-torn country in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Not only has he been a regular presence on radio and television, including BBC Radio 4's Letter from Ukraine, but he has travelled far and wide to lecture on the perilous state of his country. He has, in the process, become a crucial voice the people of Ukraine. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, was published in 2014, followed by Diary of an Invasion in 2022.