The Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov has described being “cancelled” in his home country because of a cultural backlash against authors who write in Russian.
The writer, best known for his surrealist crime story Death and the Penguin, said Ukrainian bookshops refused to stock his Russian-language fiction.
Kurkov, who is opposed to Russia’s invasion of his country and has criticised President Putin, writes in Russian because it is his first language.
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He told an audience at The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival that the war had caused deep divisions between authors. “[My novels] used to be no problem at all. Now Ukrainian bookshops don’t want to sell books in Russian. Until the end of
