About this item
Highlights
- "A bittersweet relic of a sunnier age . . . .
- Author(s): Andrey Kurkov
- 416 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Literary
Description
Book Synopsis
"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
Review Quotes
"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
"Kurkov gives us a rich cast of endearing characters and a glimpse of life in an old city on the eastern edge of Europe." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"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