The Booker Is Back: The 2012 Long List

Yes, indeed, the Russian Booker is back for 2012… the long list was released today. The list contains 24 books chosen from a field of 114 eligible nominations; since no regular Booker was awarded last year, this year’s competition includes books that would have been eligible in 2011. The 2012 short list will be announced on October 3; the winner will be named on December 4.

Here’s the entire long list, in Russian alphabetical order. I’ve marked 2012 Big Book finalists plus previous major prize winners and books I’ve read or have waiting for me on the shelf.

• 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])
• Iurii Buida: Синяя кровь (Blue Blood)—won third reader prize in 2011 Big Book, previous post
• Dmitrii Bykov: Остромов, или Ученик чародея (Ostromov, or the Sorcerer’s Apprentice)—won 2011 NatsBest plus third jury prize and second reader prize in the 2011 Big Book
• Valerii Bylinskii: Адаптация ([The?] Adaptation)
• Andrei Volos: Предатель (The Traitor)
• Iakov Gordin: Солдат и его империя (The Soldier and His Empire)
• Georgii Davydov: Крысолов (The Rat Catcher)
• Andrei Dmitriev: Крестьянин и тинейджер (The Peasant and the Teenager)—Big Book 2012 short list
• Oleg Zaionchkovskii: Загул (perhaps The Drinking Binge or The Bender)
• Aleksandr Ilichevskii: Анархисты (The Anarchists)—previous post
• Nikolai Kryshchuk: Ваша жизнь больше не прекрасна (Your Life Is No Longer Beautiful)
• Anatolii Kurchatkin: Полет шмеля (The Flight of the Bumblebee)
• Eduard Limonov: В Сырах (In Syry… “Syry” is the nickname of a Moscow region; it’s based on street names.)
• Aleksandr Melikhov: И нет им воздаяния (They Get No Recompense/No Recompense for Them)
• Sergei Nosov: Франсуаза, или Путь к леднику (Françoise, Or the Way to the Glacier)—Big Book 2012 short list, on the shelf
• Valerii Popov: Плясать досмерти (To Dance to Death)—Big Book 2012 short list
• Evgenii Popov: Арбайт, или Широкое полотно (Arbeit, or A Wide Canvas)
• Zakhar Prilepin: Черная обезьяна (The Black Monkey)—Big Book 2012 short list, previous post (This book continues to rattle around in my head…)
• Olga Slavnikova: Легкая голова (Light Head)—previous post
• Aleksei Slapovskii: Большая книга перемен (The Big Book of Changes)
• Marina Stepnova: Женщины Лазаря (The Woman of Lazarus/Lazarus’s Women)—Big Book 2012 short list, on the shelf
• Aleksandr Terekhov: Немцы ([The?] Germans)—won 2012 NatsBest, on the shelf
• Aleksei Chepelov: Перед Европой (Before Europe)
• Viktor Iagofarov: Проект «Первый кирпич» (The “First Brick” Project)

Up Next: A story from Alexander Snegirev, comments on Vladimir Makanin’s Two Sisters and Kandinsky (which I am most likely abandoning due to lack of reader interest), and St. Petersburg Noir. Also: some lists from Zakhar Prilepin…