Max Kidruk

Born in 1984, Max Kidruk is a writer, publisher and science communicator, and a power engineer by training. He first studied at the National University of Water and Environmental Engineering in Rivne, Ukraine, then undertook postgraduate studies at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He left both programmes in 2009, deciding to become a professional writer.

While living in Stockholm, he began travelling, first around Europe and then further afield. He has visited more than 40 countries, including Tanzania, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, China, Chile, Brazil, Angola, Namibia, New Zealand and Indonesia. For a time, he wrote about travel for Ukrainian magazines. His first book, the travelogue Mexican Chronicles: The Story of a Dream, was published in 2009. 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! about the Egyptian revolution, Syria and New Zealand. Each found a modest readership. His first work of fiction, the science-fiction thriller Bot, appeared in 2012 and was described by critics as Ukraine's first techno-thriller. Over ten years, Bot went through nine reprints, most recently in early 2023.

In the years that followed, Kidruk gradually moved from techno-thrillers such as The Stronghold and The Ruthless Sky towards dramatic and psychological novels. Look into My Dreams (2016) and the socially focused Where There Is No God (2018) were shortlisted for the BBC Book of the Year award. Where There Is No God spent 13 weeks in the Top 20 of the nationwide Ye Bookstore chain, seven of them at number one.

In 2017, Kidruk announced an ambitious presentation tour for his then-new novel Don't Look Back and Stay Silent. The tour covered 100 Ukrainian cities and included almost 140 events. The book became a long-selling success, with a total print run of 49,000 copies by early 2023.

In autumn 2019, Until the Light Goes Out Forever was published with augmented-reality features. In addition to an interactive cover, the book has a mobile app offering extra storylines, photographs of the locations in the novel, one character's diary, and a chat in which readers can talk to a character. The first print run of 12,000 copies sold out in six weeks. In its second week on sale, the book reached number one in the Ye Bookstore Top 20 and remained in the chart until the end of 2019.

At the end of 2022, Kidruk and his wife, Tetiana, founded Bearded Tamarin, a publishing house specialising in non-fiction and science fiction. On 1 January 2023, it published Colony, the first novel in Kidruk's New Dark Ages series. The series explores the colonisation of Mars, relations between Earth as the metropole and Mars as its dominion, and political and environmental problems on Earth in the 22nd century. Colony received positive reviews from critics and readers alike. After its first week on sale, it topped the Ye Bookstore Top 20 and remained in the chart for 24 consecutive weeks. In 2026, Colony won a poll in the Diia app on landmark books of Ukrainian independence, receiving almost a quarter of all votes.

Collapse, the sequel to Colony, was published on 26 February 2026. Its first 15,000 copies were sold during pre-orders. By the end of 2026, the print run had reached 50,000.

Kidruk speaks Ukrainian and English. He is interested in aviation and American football and is a fan of the rock band Iron Maiden. He lives in Rivne, Ukraine, and is married to Tetiana Kidruk.