{"id":290656,"date":"2012-05-31T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2012\/05\/31\/russian-big-book-prize-shortlist-announced\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T16:04:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T16:04:27","slug":"russian-big-book-prize-shortlist-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2012\/05\/31\/russian-big-book-prize-shortlist-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Big Book Prize Shortlist Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friend of Three Percent, Lisa Hayden Espenschade, who runs the incredible Russian literature blog Lizok\u2019s Bookshelf<\/a> posted<\/a> the shortlist for the \u00fcber-prestigious Big Book<\/a> (Bol\u2019shaya Kniga) Prize. Big Book is one of the “big three” Russian literary prizes, along with the Russian Booker<\/a> and the National Bestseller<\/a> (or NatsBest). <\/p>\n

Our old Open Letter pal Mikhail Shishkin<\/a> won the Big Book last year for his Letter-Book<\/i> (Pis\u2019movnik), with Vladimir Sorokin\u2019s The Blizzard<\/i> (Metel\u2019) coming in second and Dmitry Bykov\u2019s Ostromov, or the Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice<\/i> (Ostromov, ili Uchenik charodeya<\/i>) coming in third. The Big Book Prize fund distributes 6.1 million rubles (~$183k) annually among the first, second, and third prize winners, and is sponsored by a number of Russian businesses and banks along with the Russian Ministries of Culture and Print, Media and Mass Broadcasting. <\/p>\n

There will be a Big Book Prize presentation event<\/a> at Book Expo American next Thursday at 10am featuring past winners Mikhail Shishkin, Dmitry Bykov, Vladimir Makanin, Pavel Basinsky, and, supposedly, the Big Book finalists:The way the wording on Read Russia\u2019s website describes the event (“Big Book Prize: Presentation of the Big Book Prize, Russia\u2019s most prestigious literary award, plus a \u201cMeet and Greet\u201d with prize winners.”), I still can\u2019t tell if they are really planning on announcing the 2012 Big Book winner at BEA<\/span>, which would be awesome, or if they were just trying to present to an American audience the idea of the Big Book Award and will make the announcement for the prize winner in November, as stated in Russian<\/a> media<\/a> reports<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The shortlist features a number of readers whom neither I nor Lisa have read, both of us are only familiar with Prilepin\u2019s Black Monkey<\/i>, so we have a lot to catch up on before the prizewinner is (allegedly) announced in November! Without any further ado, here is the shortlist, in English no less (!), with transliteration and translation provided by Lisa herself.<\/p>\n