Shortlist announced for Russia's prestigious National Bestseller literary prize

The shortlist for the National Bestseller award, one of Russia’s most prestigious literary prizes, was announced today in a TASSpress conference. The list, which spans a range of genres from fantasy to experimental horror, is as follows:

• Finist — The Bright Falcon by Andrey Rubanov
• The Twentieth Century Presents: Cameras and Cadavers by Mikhail Trofimenkov
• Kalechina-Malechina by Yevgenia Nekrasova
• Slavic Otaku by Upyr Likhoi
• I will always be with you by Alexander Yetoyev
• The Foursome by Alexander Pelevin

Trofimenkov’s essay collection about the intertwining fates of cinema and war in the twentieth century led the prize’s preliminary vote with 14 points, while Rubanov’s fantasy inspired by Slavic folklore followed closely with 13.