Max Kidruk is a Ukrainian writer, radio host and publisher; holds a degree in Energy Engineering; got his Master’s at the National University of Water Management and Nature Resources Use (Rivne, Ukraine), and was a postgraduate student at Kyiv Polytechnic University and Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology. He left both graduate schools in 2009, having decided to become a professional writer.
While living in Stockholm, he started traveling much, first around Europe, then further abroad. Currently, he has visited more than 35 countries, including Tanzania, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, China, Chile, Brazil, Angola, Namibia, New Zealand, Indonesia, etc. For a while worked as a travel journalist for a few Ukrainian magazines. In 2009, published his first book, a travelogue Mexican Chronicles. The Story of One Dream (the second prize in the Ukrainian Literary Award Coronation of the Word (2009), the debut of the year from the bookstore chain KS). Over the next three years, Kidruk published three autobiographical travelogues, Journey to the Navel of the World about Easter Island, Love and Piranhas about Brazil, and To Zealand! on the Egyptian Revolution, Syria, and New Zealand. All of them earned reasonable success among the readers. In 2012, Kidruk published his first fiction novel, a sci-fi thriller Bot, dubbed by critics as ‘the first Ukrainian techno-thriller’. Over ten years, Bot has been republished 9 times, including the current edition released at the beginning of 2023.
Over the next years, Kidruk slowly shifted from writing techno-thrillers (The Stronghold, The Ruthless Skies) to more serious dramatic and psychological stories. The sci-fi book The Inner Side of Dreams (2016) and the social novel Godlessness (2018) were shortlisted for the BBC Book of the Year Award. The novel Godlessness remained on the TOP-20 list of the Bookstore E chain for 13 weeks, 7 of which headed the list.
In the spring of 2015, in Poland was published Kidruk’s first non-fiction book, Ja Ukrainiec (I, the Ukrainian). In the book, the author analyzes relations between Ukraine and Russia from the beginning of the liberation war led by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi to the events of Euromaidan (2013-2014) and Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine.
In 2017, Kidruk announced a large-scale presentation tour with his new novel Don’t Look Back and Stay Quiet. The tour covered 100 cities in Ukraine, where he conducted almost 140 presentations. This novel became a long seller; its total print run at the beginning of 2023 comprises 49 thousand copies.
In the fall of 2019, Kidruk’s augmented reality novel Until the Light Fades Away was published. In addition to the interactive cover, the mobile application developed specifically for the book includes supplementary storylines, photos of the places where the events of the novel happen, a full diary of one of the characters, and a chat the reader can use to talk with one of the characters. The first print run (12,000 copies) was sold within the period of a month and a half. In the second week of sales, the book headed the TOP-20 list of the Bookstore E chain and remained on the list until the end of 2019.
At the end of 2022, Kidruk, together with his wife Tetiana, founded the non-fiction and science fiction publishing house Bearded Tamarin. On January 1, 2023, the publishing house released Kidruk’s novel Colony, the first book of the sci-fi series New Dark Ages. The series focuses on the colonization of Mars, the relationship between Earth (metropolis) and Mars (dominion), as well as political and environmental problems on Earth in the 22nd century. Colony received positive feedback from both critics and readers; after the first week of sales, it topped the TOP-20 list of the Bookstore E chain and remained on the list for 24 weeks. As of end-2023, the total print run of the novel reached 37,000 copies. The release of the second book of the cycle (Collapse) is anticipated in 2026.
Kidruk speaks English and Ukrainian. He is fond of aviation and American football and is a fan of the rock band Iron Maiden. Lives in Rivne, Ukraine, married to Tetiana Kidruk.
