The co-founders of the Yasnaya Polyana Book Award, the Yasnaya Polyana Leo Tolstoy Estate-Museum and the company Samsung Electronics, have announced the long list of the Foreign Literature Award for 2024. The long list includes 27 books by foreign authors from 14 countries, among them Argentina, the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Italy, China, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, and others. The names of the authors who will be included in the short list in this category will be announced in May.
The Foreign Literature Award was introduced in 2015 and marks significant works of fiction by modern foreign authors which have been translated into Russian. The long list in the category is drawn up by experts: translators, publishers, and literary critics. The short list is later drawn up by the jury members. The winner in the category — a foreign author—receives one million two hundred thousand rubles. The translator of the book gets an award of five hundred thousand rubles.
In various years, the winners of this award were: Ruth Ozeki (2015), Orhan Pamuk (2016), Mario Vargas Llosa (2017), Amos Oz (2018), Hernán Rivera Letelier (2019), Patricia Duncker (2020), Julian Barnes (2021), Yú Huá (2022), and Venko Andonovsky (2023), and the translators of their books into Russian: Ekaterina Ilyina, Apollinaria Avrutina, Kyrill Korkonosenko, Victor Radutsky, Darya Sinitsyna, Alexandra Borisenko and Victor Sonkin, Dmitri Simanovsky, Sergey Polotovsky, Yulia Dreizis, and Olga Pankina.
The names of the winners in the Foreign Fiction Award will be announced in October of 2024, during the annual awards ceremony of the Yasnaya Polyana Book Award.
“This year the Yasnaya Polyana Award in the Foreign Fiction category will be given for the tenth time. We are proud of our winners. And we are very happy about the fact that long lists in this category, according to very many people, have become the best guides to modern foreign literature. Now again, works by 27 authors are included in the list. Among them, there are authors who attracted our attention not for the first time, such as Olga Tokarchuk, Daniel Mason, and Daniel Speck, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez. There are also authors of world-wide fame — Ian McEwan and Jon Fosse. But also there are names that are quite new to us. So the more interesting it will be to read and discuss their books,” commented Vladimir Tolstoy, chairman of the jury, RF President’s Councilor for Culture and Art.
The Yasnaya Polyana Book Award has been given since 2003 to the writers whose works maintain traditions of classical and relevant tendencies of modern literature. The Yasnaya Polyana Award is a guide to reading, drawing up lists of the best Russian and foreign books. The jury headed by Vladimir Tolstoy, RF President’s Councilor for Culture and Art, includes well-known literary critics and authors. The jury selects works of fiction in two main categories: Modern Russian Fiction and Foreign Fiction.
In 2024, a new category was introduced—Youth. It will mark works by modern authors in Russian, in which they most profoundly explore the subject of growing up, relations with parents and family, the experience of friendship and love, and issues related to facing reality and trying to grasp it, and development of the personality. The prize amount for this category will be four hundred thousand rubles. The short list and the winner in the Youth category will be announced by the jury consisting of graduates of the V. Kurbatov Yasnaya Polyana Literary Criticism School.
Last year, the award in the Personality category was given for the first time. It was received by Yuri Arabov, a Russian prose writer, poet, and screenplay writer. This award can be won by a person who made a special contribution in the development of Russian literature — a prose writer, a poet, a literary historian, a literary critic, a theater or film director who created stage or film versions of literary works, or any public or cultural figure who made a considerable impact on Russian literary life.
Also in 2023, the Missed Masterpieces category was introduced. It marks a work of world literature that did not attract the attention of Russian critics and translators when the book was published and was discovered by our readers only after the author’s death. The long list for this nomination is also drawn up by experts. The award is given to the translator of the work into Russian. The first winner in this category was Irina Doronina, for her translation of the novel Things Fall Apart by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.
As part of the awards, a special prize by the Samsung company is also given— Readers’ Choice. The winner is the author of the work that collected the most votes during the on-line readers’ voting process. The voting takes place among the works in the short list of the Award’s main category — Modern Russian Fiction. In 2024, the special prize will be one hundred thousand rubles.
At present, the Yasnaya Polyana Award is the largest annual book award in Russia. The total prize fund of the award is 6.7 million rubles.
The Foreign Literature Award was introduced in 2015 and marks significant works of fiction by modern foreign authors which have been translated into Russian. The long list in the category is drawn up by experts: translators, publishers, and literary critics. The short list is later drawn up by the jury members. The winner in the category — a foreign author—receives one million two hundred thousand rubles. The translator of the book gets an award of five hundred thousand rubles.
In various years, the winners of this award were: Ruth Ozeki (2015), Orhan Pamuk (2016), Mario Vargas Llosa (2017), Amos Oz (2018), Hernán Rivera Letelier (2019), Patricia Duncker (2020), Julian Barnes (2021), Yú Huá (2022), and Venko Andonovsky (2023), and the translators of their books into Russian: Ekaterina Ilyina, Apollinaria Avrutina, Kyrill Korkonosenko, Victor Radutsky, Darya Sinitsyna, Alexandra Borisenko and Victor Sonkin, Dmitri Simanovsky, Sergey Polotovsky, Yulia Dreizis, and Olga Pankina.
The names of the winners in the Foreign Fiction Award will be announced in October of 2024, during the annual awards ceremony of the Yasnaya Polyana Book Award.
“This year the Yasnaya Polyana Award in the Foreign Fiction category will be given for the tenth time. We are proud of our winners. And we are very happy about the fact that long lists in this category, according to very many people, have become the best guides to modern foreign literature. Now again, works by 27 authors are included in the list. Among them, there are authors who attracted our attention not for the first time, such as Olga Tokarchuk, Daniel Mason, and Daniel Speck, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez. There are also authors of world-wide fame — Ian McEwan and Jon Fosse. But also there are names that are quite new to us. So the more interesting it will be to read and discuss their books,” commented Vladimir Tolstoy, chairman of the jury, RF President’s Councilor for Culture and Art.
The Yasnaya Polyana Book Award has been given since 2003 to the writers whose works maintain traditions of classical and relevant tendencies of modern literature. The Yasnaya Polyana Award is a guide to reading, drawing up lists of the best Russian and foreign books. The jury headed by Vladimir Tolstoy, RF President’s Councilor for Culture and Art, includes well-known literary critics and authors. The jury selects works of fiction in two main categories: Modern Russian Fiction and Foreign Fiction.
In 2024, a new category was introduced—Youth. It will mark works by modern authors in Russian, in which they most profoundly explore the subject of growing up, relations with parents and family, the experience of friendship and love, and issues related to facing reality and trying to grasp it, and development of the personality. The prize amount for this category will be four hundred thousand rubles. The short list and the winner in the Youth category will be announced by the jury consisting of graduates of the V. Kurbatov Yasnaya Polyana Literary Criticism School.
Last year, the award in the Personality category was given for the first time. It was received by Yuri Arabov, a Russian prose writer, poet, and screenplay writer. This award can be won by a person who made a special contribution in the development of Russian literature — a prose writer, a poet, a literary historian, a literary critic, a theater or film director who created stage or film versions of literary works, or any public or cultural figure who made a considerable impact on Russian literary life.
Also in 2023, the Missed Masterpieces category was introduced. It marks a work of world literature that did not attract the attention of Russian critics and translators when the book was published and was discovered by our readers only after the author’s death. The long list for this nomination is also drawn up by experts. The award is given to the translator of the work into Russian. The first winner in this category was Irina Doronina, for her translation of the novel Things Fall Apart by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.
As part of the awards, a special prize by the Samsung company is also given— Readers’ Choice. The winner is the author of the work that collected the most votes during the on-line readers’ voting process. The voting takes place among the works in the short list of the Award’s main category — Modern Russian Fiction. In 2024, the special prize will be one hundred thousand rubles.
At present, the Yasnaya Polyana Award is the largest annual book award in Russia. The total prize fund of the award is 6.7 million rubles.
Posted : 20 march 2024