Andrey Yuryevich Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer, teacher, and filmmaker.

Andrey Kurkov was born in the settlement of Budogoshch, Leningrad Oblast. He has lived in Kyiv since early childhood. In 1983, he graduated from the Kyiv State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages. From 1985 to 1987, he served as a guard at Odessa Penal Colony No. 51.

He began writing while still in the senior grades of school. He graduated from a Japanese-language translators’ school. He worked as an editor at the Dnipro publishing house. Since 1988, he has been a member of the English PEN Club. Today he is the author of 13 novels and 5 books for children. Since the 1990s, all of Kurkov’s works in Russian published in Ukraine have appeared at Folio (Kharkiv). Since 2005, Kurkov’s works in Russia have been published by Amphora (St. Petersburg). His novel Picnic on Ice has sold 150,000 copies in Ukraine—more than any book by any other contemporary Ukrainian writer. Kurkov’s books have been translated into 21 languages.

Kurkov is the only writer from the post-Soviet space whose books have made it into the top ten of the European bestseller lists. In March 2008, Andrey Kurkov’s novel The Night Milkman was included in the longlist of the Russian literary prize National Bestseller.

He taught at Bell College (Cambridge, England), which is not part of Cambridge University, and at the film department of the theater institute (Kyiv, Ukraine).

He worked as a screenwriter at the A. Dovzhenko film studio. Kurkov is also a member of the Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine (since 1993) and the National Writers’ Union (since 1994). Since 1998, he has been a member of the European Film Academy and a permanent member of the jury for the European Film Academy’s Felix award.

More than 20 feature and documentary films have been made based on his screenplays.

He is married to Elizabeth Sharp (a consultant at the British Council in Ukraine