RaveBookforumUltimately a fiercely feminist work, one that skewers the destructive male principle exemplified by the casual sexism and vicious cruelty of many of the novel’s characters. The book also specifically calls out and decries various forms of gender-based discrimination and violence ... Tokarczuk’s bewitching narrative voice in this novel—by turns threatening and cajoling, and invariably odd—is brilliantly captured in the muscular English of translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones ... Tokarczuk’s erudite, subversive, and delightfully zany novel challenges us, too, to look hard at what’s being said and done around us, especially things we might prefer not to have to witness.
Andrey Kurkov, trans. by Boris Dralyuk
RaveRumpusAndrey Kurkov has built a gripping story and universe ... Grey Bees shows him to be a master storyteller at the top of his game ... Kurkov handles the book’s solemn argument—how war destroys everyone’s lives—with a light touch and gently ironic humor that comes through beautifully in Boris Dralyuk’s translation, which alternates lush lyricism with wry humor ... Kurkov’s prose throughout the novel is characterized by a compelling, meandering quality that shows us the shape of Sergeyich’s thought patterns ... Again and again, the most ostensibly simple exchanges in the book telescope to reveal moments of unexpected historical depth.
