| Applicants for the Apollo Grigoriev Prize and Anti-Booker laureates have been named The nomination for the Apollo Grigoriev Prize can be considered a summing up of the literary year. The tastes of thirty-five critics - members of the Academy of Russian Modern Literature, of course, vary (as evidenced by more than two dozen nominations). Some of the nominators sinned against the statute of the prize by nominating strong essays that were published before 2000. The jury members (chair Alla Latynina, Dmitry Bavilsky, Dmitry Bak, Andrey Vasilevsky, Evgeny Ermolin) will scratch their heads on January 25, determining the three winners, one of whom will receive the main award a month later - $25,000 (provided by the co-founder of the award - Rosbank). There are no problem-free awards, but the “Apollongrigorievsky” list has its own merit - it gives an accurate image of “literature 2000”.
In the three-year history of the Grigoryevka, poetry was inferior to prose quantitatively, but gained in quality (of the nine laureates, five were poets, of the three winners of the “big prize,” two). It is curious what will happen now that only six poets are vying for the prize. These are Dmitry Bykov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Irina Dugina, Timur Kibirov (both of his collections were nominated - Amour, exil... and “Anniversary of the Lyrical Hero”), Lev Losev and Vera Pavlova.
Among the almost three times larger group of prose writers, Anatoly Korolev (“The Tongue Man”), Leonid Yuzefovich (“Prince of the Wind,” a glorious historical detective story), and Nikolai Kononov (“The Funeral of a Grasshopper,” Booker shortlist) stand out among those who competed for the Booker. Youth countercultural exoticism is represented by Sergei Bolmat (“On Our Own”) and Mikhail Ivanov (“Banana”), “retrospective” exoticism by Daniil Granin (“Evenings with Peter the Great”), and “ladies’ reading” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya ( "Journey to the Seventh Side of the World") We note with joy Maria Galina’s story “A Bedspread for Avvadonna” and Alan Cherchesov’s novel “A Wreath on the Wind’s Grave.” The chances are high for philologists who have embarked on the path of intellectual essayism (“Records and Extracts” by Mikhail Gasparov) and novelized memoirs (“Darkness falls on the old steps” by Alexander Chudakov). Also nominated were items by Sergei Tyutyunik, Elena Chizhova, Dmitry Shevarov, and Igor Shevelev. It’s strange, but left off the list are “Here’s a Tapestry” by Marina Vishnevetskaya, “Kys” by Tatyana Tolstaya, “Monks” by Anatoly Azolsky, and “Sir” by Anatoly Naiman.
The literary priorities of Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Anti-Booker) also became known. In the “Fourth Prose” nomination, there were no quirks - the prize was awarded not to Boris Yeltsin or Eduard Limonov, but to the worthy “war” memoirist Alexei Filippov. Everyone’s favorite Boris Akunin (“Coronation, or the Last of the Novels”) has finally been recognized as a “serious” (award-winning) writer. The poet of the year was Bakhyt Kenzheev, whose final collection was just released by the Nezavisimaya Gazeta Publishing House. Among the playwrights, the leader is the young Ural resident Vasily Sigarev (his “Plasticine” was awarded the Debut Prize on Friday), and among the critics is Evgeny Ermolin (Yaroslavl). Everything is predictable: no failures, no breakthroughs. In general, it corresponds to the outgoing year. Maybe “Grigorievka” will make you think better about him. Andrey NEMZER |
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