Stories of Resistance: Olivier Norek in Conversation with Andrey Kurkov

Join us for a powerful evening of conversation between bestselling French author Olivier Norek and acclaimed Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, as they explore war, resistance, and the endurance of the human spirit through their latest works.

In The Winter Warriors, Olivier Norek revives the icy silence of the Finnish forests during the Winter war of 1939—a forgotten front where rifles froze, but not the will of a nation. Against all expectations, Finland resisted the Soviet onslaught with nothing more than skis, cunning, and courage. At the heart of this stark and haunting narrative stands Simo Häyhä, the legendary sniper known as the White Death, who becomes a chilling symbol of one man’s ability to shift the tide of history.

Meanwhile, in Our Daily War, Andrey Kurkov writes from today’s frontiers—not of history, but of life itself. With piercing humanity and quiet defiance, he documents the everyday surrealism of Ukraine under siege: children doing schoolwork in metro stations, winemakers repurposing war detritus, and soldiers scribbling messages of remembrance on their ammunitions.

Together, these two authors offer a unique and moving reflection on what is means to resist. Across time and geography, The Winter Warriors and Our Daily War speak to the same truth: when history tries to erase a people, resistance becomes not just survival, but identity.

As war redraws maps and tests identities, Norek and Kurkov remind us that it is not always the grand strategies that shape destiny, but the unbreakable thread of resilience—from the snows of Karelia to the skies above Kyiv.