Andrey Kurkov was born in the village of Budogoshch, Leningrad Region. From early childhood lives in Kyiv. In 1983 - graduated from the Kyiv State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages. From 1985 to 1987 he served as a security guard in Odessa correctional colony No. 51. He began to write in high school. He graduated from the school of translators from Japanese. He worked as an editor of the publishing house "Dnepr." Since 1988, a member of the English Pen Club. Now he is the author of 13 novels and 5 books for children. Since the 1990s, all of Kurkov's works in Russian in Ukraine have been published by Folio Publishing House (Kharkov).