Three Years on Fire: The Destruction of Ukraine
Andrey Kurkov
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 an 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 run slow when the first missiles fall, as if 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 losses – in an intimate and very moving record of national endurance. Three Years on Fire is a luminous act of remembrance from a writer whose voice stands witness to everything Ukraine has lost – and everything it refuses to give up.
Demy hardback, with map · 224pp · £18.99 · 978-1-916788-79-4 · Publication 20.xi.25
Éric Cantona’s 82 Goals
Valentin Deudon
translated from the French by Ian Monk
“Sönmez playfully expands Kafka’s world in a literary experiment that encourages readers to reimagine the unfinished work of their heroes”
Natalie Perman, Financial Times
West Berlin, 1968. As a youth uprising sweeps over Europe in the shadow of the Cold War, two men face each other across an interrogation table. Ferdy Kaplan, has shot and killed a university student. Kommissar Müller is trying to find out why.
When it transpires that Kaplan’s intended target was not the student, but Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s close friend and the executor of his literary estate, the interrogation of a murderer transforms into a dialogue between a passionate admirer of Kafka’s work, who is attempting to protect the author’s final wish to have all his manuscripts burned, and a police commissioner who is learning more about literature than he thought possible from a prisoner in his custody.
A-format paperback · 112pp · £9.99 · Paperback ISBN 978-1-917764-03-2 · Autumn 2026Lovers of Franz K. (paperback)
Burhan Sönmez
translated from the Kurdish by Sami Hêzil
“Sönmez playfully expands Kafka’s world in a literary experiment that encourages readers to reimagine the unfinished work of their heroes”
Natalie Perman, Financial Times
West Berlin, 1968. As a youth uprising sweeps over Europe in the shadow of the Cold War, two men face each other across an interrogation table. Ferdy Kaplan, has shot and killed a university student. Kommissar Müller is trying to find out why.
When it transpires that Kaplan’s intended target was not the student, but Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s close friend and the executor of his literary estate, the interrogation of a murderer transforms into a dialogue between a passionate admirer of Kafka’s work, who is attempting to protect the author’s final wish to have all his manuscripts burned, and a police commissioner who is learning more about literature than he thought possible from a prisoner in his custody.
B-format paperback · 112pp · £9.99 · Paperback ISBN 978-1-917764-03-2 · Autumn 2026
Penguins and People
Marcel Haenen
translated from the Dutch by Alice Tetley-Paul
“Penguins and People is a book of profound beauty, movingly written, delightful, hilarious, and historically fascinating” De Tijd
It should come as no surprise that a man who holds the official title of “penguin editor” at a major Dutch newspaper has a particular love for penguins. Marcel Haenen has travelled the world to reconstruct the story of humanity’s relationship with penguins, consulting experts and meeting penguins around the globe. Penguins and People is not only a love letter to the world’s favourite flightless bird, but also an urgent call to action in the face of a collapsing climate.
Demy hardback, with map and colour/black & white illustrations · 320pp · £22.00 · April 2027