It’s been a long time since I’ve methodically gone through an entire long or short list for an award, adding links and descriptions… so here you go: the entire 25-member 2011 НОС/NOSE award long list, with a few notes, including links to previous posts about the four books I’ve read. As usual, I’m sure some of the title translations are awful due to lack of context. The NOSE award is a program of the Mikhail Prokhorov Fund.
I’m also sure more summaries, excerpts, and full texts are floating around in the Runet, but this warm fall day keeps calling me away from my computer! Though a few books sound interesting, I can’t say I found anything new on the list that I feel compelled to seek out right away, particularly since there seem to be a lot of short story collections and nonfiction books on the list. Marina Palei, whom I’ve been meaning to read for some time, is probably at the top of my list.
1. Andrei Astvatsaturov: Скунскамера (Skunskamera), a book that’s a veteran of long and short lists.
2. Karine Arutiunova: Пепел красной коровы (Ash from the Red Cow), a collection of very short stories.
3. Marina Akhmedova: Дневник смертницы. Хадижа (Diary of a Death Girl. Khadizha. [a key title word can mean a prisoner condemned to death or a suicide bomber]), a novel about a Dagestani girl that Akhmedova based on stories of real girls in the Northern Caucasus.
4. Nikolai Baitov: Думай, что говоришь (Think When You Speak). Short stories (41 in 320 pages) from a poet.
5. Il’ia Boiashov: Каменная баба (The Stone Woman) (previous post)
6. Iana Vagner: Вонгозеро (Vongozero), a debut novel about a nasty flu; the book grew out of Live Journal posts.
7. Igor’ Vishnevetskii: Ленинград (Leningrad), a novella set in Leningrad during World War 2 that Vishnevetskii says is a postscript of sorts to Andrei Belyi’s Petersburg because he imagined Belyi’s characters in his own book. For more: Svobodanews.ru interview with Vishnevetskii here.
8. Natal’ia Galkina: Табернакль (Tabernacle)
9. Dj Stalingrad: Исход (could be Exodus or something like The Outcome), apparently about leftwing skinheads.
10. Dmitrii Danilov: Горизонтальное положение (Horizontal Position) (previous post)
11. Nikolai Kononov: Фланёр (The Flâneur), a novel set in the 1930s and 1940s. (OpenSpace.ru review)
12. Aleksandr Markin: Дневник 2006–2011 (Diary 2006-2011), Live Journal posts from Russia’s first LJ blogger. (This seems to be a common thread this year…) Comments on Ozon.ru note Markin’s interest in German literature and European architecture.
13. Aleksei Nikitin: Истеми (İstemi), a novel about bored students who create a geopolitical game and get in trouble. (The description on the Ad Marginem site is much more complicated.) Risk, anyone?
14. Marina Palei: Дань саламандре (beginning end) (Tribute [the monetary kind] for the Salamander) was also long-listed for the National Bestseller award.
15. Viktor Pelevin: Ананасная вода для прекрасной дамы (Pineapple Water for the Beautiful Lady), a bestselling story collection.
16. Andrei Rubanov: Тоже родина (Also a Motherland), a story collection.
17. Maria Rybakova: Гнедич (Gnedich), a novel in verse about Russian poet Nikolai Gnedich, the first Russian translator of The Iliad. Rybakova is also a poet. Excerpt
18. Figl’-Migl’: Ты так любишь эти фильмы (You Love Those Films So Much), a NatsBest finalist that lost in a tie breaker vote when Kseniia Sobchak cast her vote for Dmitrii Bykov instead. Sobchak said in an interview that she doesn’t consider F-M’s book literature. She also compares Bykov to McDonald’s and says she hates his ЖД (Living Souls) (previous post). Take that!
19. Margarita Khemlin: Крайний (Krainii: my previous post explains the title)
20. Andrei Sharyi and Iaroslav Shimov: Корни и корона (Roots and the Crown), essays about Austro-Hungary. (OpenSpace.ru review)
21. Mikhail Shishkin: Письмовник (Letter-Book) (previous post)
22. Nina Shnirman: Счастливая девочка (Lucky Girl) (excerpt); a book about a girl’s childhood that includes World War 2. I’m not clear if it’s strictly memoir or somewhat fictionalized. Either way, it was a Cosmo book of the month!
23. Gleb Shul’piakov: Фес (Fes or Fez, as you prefer), a novel. The publisher’s description says Fes is about a man who brings his wife to the maternity hospital and, when left to his own devices, ends up in a basement in an unidentified eastern city… sounds like more warped reality.
24. Aleksandr Iablonskii: Абраша (Abrasha), a novel with a vague summary.
25. Irina Iasina: История болезни (Case History) appears to be a memoir about having multiple sclerosis.
Up next: I’m hoping to finish Sergei Kuznetsov’s Хоровод воды (The Round Dance of Water) in time for a post next week.
hey lizok
ReplyDeletei am a great fan of russian fiction and have been looking for a specific book of which i can't remember the name too.
it's from the viewpoint of a young boy living in a soviet era russia. i think it's before stalin, i not too sure abt that. the book provides incidents from different instances from the boy's life. the timeline is pretty mixed up but some instances include when the boy sends his grandma to check out movies for him. he know they r good when she comes back angry and bad when she comes back crying. also his father is either a civil engineer or architect and makes his son draw arrows for him on blueprints because they the most perfect arrows he has ever seen.
if u can tell me the name of this book i will be eternally grateful to you. i read this when i was a young teen but cannot remember what it was called or the author's name for it.
thank you in advance
jgalex1990@gmail.com
You can read about Markin's Diary here http://www.openspace.ru/literature/events/details/22788/
ReplyDeleteActually, it's has less to do with Live Journal.
@Jasmin: I can't think of anything that quite matches the description you provided but will let you know if I come up with something.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: Thank you for adding the link to Markin's ЖЖ/LJ!