Bird in Space – new novel by Miki Lentin
PRESS RELEASE
9 October 2026
Afsana Press announces the publication of BIRD IN SPACE by Miki Lentin
‘Jerry had only been in Romania for a few hours and already the light had darkened.’
Afsana Press announces the publication of Miki Lentin’s novel, BIRD IN SPACE on 2 February 2027, a captivating story of one man’s journey across Romania and Ukraine to find and save a family home.
In London, Jerry Gold’s mother calls with an impossible demand: travel to Romania and into Ukraine to save a wooden house his grandfather built before the second world war from destruction. Armed only with her blurred 1980s photographs, a befriended truck driver and museum director and a foreboding sense that the land knows him, Jerry is pushed through northern Romania’s forests and borderlands toward Chernivtsi in Ukraine and the stories about the house.
Once there, he is forced to confront the truth about himself, what happened years ago in Communist Romania and what happens to the people and places we leave behind. Blending Romanian new wave cinema, the art of Constantin Brancusi, Romanian traditions and the richness of the landscape, BIRD IN SPACE blends history with the present day, depicting a country that is lost in time, still emerging from Communism and struggling with its present and future. The story is personal, one of searching and belonging and asks questions about middle age, the impact of war and what we do with our personal and built heritage.
Author Miki Lentin said: “I am overjoyed that BIRD IN SPACE will be published by Afsana Press. Through the book, I have tried to bring to life the beauty and strangeness that I found in Romania, a country steeped in tradition and history, with dark edges and a past that still impacts the country today. Romania is a country that somehow has always been in my psyche and family history, and I have used BIRD IN SPACE to try to understand the country and the impact it has had on me and my family’s history. I can’t wait to share BIRD IN SPACE with you all and after many years of trying to get this book completed, I am thrilled that it will soon be in print.”
“We’re always waiting with excitement on Miki’s next book,” said Afsana press’ editor and co-publisher Goran Baba Ali. “Miki’s stories are clever, heartwarming, witty at times, and mostly human. There is a lot of deep thinking in Miki’s writing. Not pretentious, very readable and lucid, while almost each line and every scene holds in themselves the subtext of the story. That’s why Miki’s stories resonate with various readers, regardless their favourite genre.”
“For the first time though he imagined what it must have been like for his mother to visit a country so isolated from the rest of the world, and walk through dark, drab communist towns alone, not knowing who was watching or what was behind the next corner.”
About the author
Miki Lentin took up writing while travelling the world with his family. His first novel Winter Sun (Afsana Press, 2024) was described as ‘bittersweet, funny and tender’ by journalist and writer Viv Groskop, and an ‘achievement that sits alongside Bellow’s in Seize the Day’ by Irish writer Kevin Curran. Winter Sun followed a collection of short stories, Inner Core (Afsana Press, 2022), about which writer Lynda Clark said that ‘Lentin takes linear time and smashes it to pieces, reassembling the shards as narrative mosaics.’ Miki completed an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London in 2020 and was a finalist in the 2020 Irish Novel Fair for Winter Sun. He has been placed highly in competitions including Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize, Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Award and Leicester Writes. He volunteers with Freedom From Torture’s ‘Write to Life’ programme, supporting refugees and asylum seekers with their creative work.
About the book
Release: 02 February 2027
Binding: Paperback
Format: 198 x 129 mm
Spine: 12 mm
Weight: 165 g
Extent: 208 pages
Price: £14.99
ISBN: 9781068495823
BIC 2.0: Modern & Contemporary Fiction (FBA)
Memoirs (DNC)
Eastern Europe (1DT)
Country of origin: UK
Distributor: TURNAROUND
(visit www.turnaround-uk.com)
Second Floor, Crown House
47 Chase Side
Southgate, London N14 5BP
T: 020 8829 3000
F: 020 8881 5088 Mnemonic: Turn
Note to editors:
BIRD IN SPACE is available from 9 October 2026 to pre-order (ISBN: 9781739982492) from all bookshops and online retailers, or directly from Afsana Press:
For more information or to order an advanced reader copy, please contact:
Tel: +44 7453918505
The author can be contacted at miki@mikilentin.net or +44 (0) 7976 793 666
Instagram - @mikiwriter
About Afsana Press
Afsana Press is an independent publisher producing sparkling literary works by authors whose stories have a direct relation to social, political or cultural issues in countries and communities around the world. The publisher’s mission is to get to the heart of the urgent matters of our time and times past, asking significant questions about migration and refugees, the environment, gender, development and social justice. Particular attention goes to work of authors in exile, and our stories often concern the movement of humans in an ever-shifting world.
Instagram - @afsana_press
Twitter - @afsana_press
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