Sunday, January 31, 2016

NOS(E) Winners for 2015/2016

The NOS(E) Award announced winners last week: the jury prize went to Danila Zaitsev’s Повесть и житие Данилы Терентьевича Зайцева (The Life and Tale of Danila Terentyevich Zaitsev), which I described like this in previous posts: “In which a Russian Old Believer born in China and living in Argentina tells his story. A Yasnaya Polyana Award finalist and Booker longlister.” The text of the first two (of seven) handwritten notebooks that make up the book—it’s 712 pages (long) in the printed version—is available on Журнальный зал: part 1 and part 2. Based on what I’ve heard and read about the book, the language may be the most interesting part: the manuscript was prepared for publication by Olga Rovnova, a linguist who researches the language of Old Believers in South America.

This year’s readers’ choice award went to Ekaterina Margolis for Следы на воде (perhaps Ripples in the Water? or maybe the wake behind a boat or, say, a gondola?). In an earlier post, I called it “an autobiographical book with Venice. And Moscow. And the ‘river of human lives,’ as the book’s description says. (excerpt).” Perhaps most interesting about this win is that Margolis’s book was on the NOS(E) longlist but didn’t make the shortlist. Hmm.

Up Next: Alisa Ganieva’s Bride and Groom.

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