Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov
The following is part of a paper I wrote for a 2025 University of Toronto course in Contemporary Ukrainian Literature - Margaret Khomenko. Grey Bees takes place in the years immediately following 2014 and was published before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It's the story of a man "in between", out of time and place. Following Russia's invasion of the Donbas region in 2014, the man lives in the grey zone near Donetsk, in between the Ukrainian and Russian front lines. In Godot-like fashion, he travels southwest in search of the unknown. Since he's from the war zone, he is suspected of being a Russian collaborator by people in settlements directly west of his home. Since he's a Ukrainian, he is punished by Russian border guards in occupied Crimea who suspect he is a Ukrainian nationalist. He isn't welcome by either group in either place, so he returns home to the war-torn grey zone, where the other sole survivor accepts him. Life sett...
