The BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand was held at the London Book Fair for the third time by the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication in collaboration with Academia Rossica. Building on the success of last year, publishers were offered even greater opportunities for creating and expanding business links with the fast growing Russian book market. This was of particular important this year as part of the lead up to the 2011 London Book Fair, where Russia will be the Guest of Honour. Despite being affected by the unexpected volcanic activity, as was the entire London Book Fair, we were very pleased to see that the BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand was one of the liveliest at the fair.

Yume Pictures and Academia Rossica are delighted to invite you to a special screening of the film 'A Room and a Half' at 8pm on 10 May at Cine Lumière, South Kensington, London, SW7 2DT, followed by Q&A with director Andrey Khrzhanovsky and actress Alisa Freyndlikh. It is a beautifully mesmerising film based on the life of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.

The Debut Prize was instituted in 2000 by State Duma Deputy Andrei Skoch, creator of the humanitarian foundation Pokolenie (Generation). Skoch originally conceived of Pokolenie as a medical charity to help provincial Russian clinics, sick children and pensioners. The Debut, Pokolenie’s only cultural project to date, has become a prize of national renown. The Debut has a strict age limit: entrants may not be over the age of 25. Members of the Russian literary establishment were skeptical at first. They doubted that writers so young would have something to say to readers. Young writers might try their hand at poetry, they argued, but they didn’t have enough life experience to write a story or a novel. However, the Debut has shown that a person’s life experience at any age is complete in and of itself. What a person knows about the world at 20 has been forgotten by the time he is 30. What he could have written at 20 he will no longer write at 30. He will write something else. Strangely enough, most writers live without their first book: it remains in their minds, in drafts. The Debut inspires young Russian writers to complete that first book. The Debut prompts them to commit to literature their unique experience, what might be described as the shock of their first encounter with grown-up life. Not just their new existential status, but daily events. Suddenly a person is faced with bank applications, having to pay rent and buy insurance; no one will fill out the forms for him, no one will answer for him. And he suddenly feels horribly alone in the world. This sort of loneliness, like any other, has a huge creative potential. The Debut brings in the first literary harvest of the writing generation — and it does so every year. 2010 marks the first year of Debut’s international program. Funded by Pokolenie, the program aims to present the works of Debut finalists and winners to the foreign reader. Collections of these works will be translated and their authors will be sent to international book fairs and festivals. This year’s collection appears in English and Chinese. Future collections will be brought out in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and so on. Since the number of Debut finalists and winners is only increasing, as is their level and mastery, publication of their works in English will continue.

26 May
Moscow
On the 26th of May, the names of the writers shortlisted for the 'Big Book' literary prize were announced. 13 authors have been shortlisted. Two of the shortlisted books were entered into the competition as manuscripts: Mariam Petrosyan's 'The House Where'and Andrei Baldin's 'The Extension of the Full Stop'.

Mikhail Shishkin was born in 1961 and grew up in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute where he trained as a teacher. Following his graduation in 1982, Shishkin worked as a journalist at ‘Rovesnik’ and then, between 1985 and 1995, as a teacher of English and German. In 1995 he moved to Switzerland and he lives in Zurich to this day. Buoyed by Shishkin’s sophisticated language and phrases of unique melody, predictable comparisons have been made to that other writer of extraordinary linguistic versatility, Vladimir Nabokov. Though he understands himself as within a tradition of Russian writers in exile, for Shishkin, the question ‘to return or not to return to Russia’ simply does not exist. He asserts that ‘for a better understanding of the self one should live everywhere’.

Aleksandr Ilichevsky was born in Sumgayit, near Baku, in 1970. A graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, he worked in research in Israel and the United States from 1991 to 1998, and has lived in Moscow since 1998. Ilichevsky's published prose works include Klein's Bottle (Butyl'ka Kleina, 2005), and the novel Matisse (2007). ‘The Sparrow', which is included in Klein's Bottle and received the prestigious Yury Kazakov short story prize in 2005, is devoted to the famine which followed the introduction of grain requisitioning by the Soviet government in 1932 and which is thought to have killed some five million peasants. Matisse, by contrast, gives a panoramic picture of Moscow and Russia in the 1990s, taking as its protagonists two vagrants and a physicist who decides to join their number. Despite puzzling many readers and critics with its title, it was awarded the Russian Booker Prize in 2007.

Mikhail Shishkin was born in 1961 and grew up in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute where he trained as a teacher. Following his graduation in 1982, Shishkin worked as a journalist at ‘Rovesnik’ and then, between 1985 and 1995, as a teacher of English and German. In 1995 he moved to Switzerland and he lives in Zurich to this day. Buoyed by Shishkin’s sophisticated language and phrases of unique melody, predictable comparisons have been made to that other writer of extraordinary linguistic versatility, Vladimir Nabokov. Though he understands himself as within a tradition of Russian writers in exile, for Shishkin, the question ‘to return or not to return to Russia’ simply does not exist. He asserts that ‘for a better understanding of the self one should live everywhere’.

Deputy director of the RAN Institute of Economics
This year, he was awarded a European prize for his ‘Contribution to Economics’. With R.S. Greenberg, he co-founded the concept ‘Economic socio-dynamism’, about which more than 10 studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad.

Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow
Kirill is an internationally renowned film critic and lecturer in directing and script writing at the Institute for European Culture in Moscow.

Film critic
Plakhov was born in Starokostiantyniv, Ukrainian SSR. After graduating in mechanics and mathematics from Lviv University, he studied history of cinema at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

President of the International Institute of Global Development
Mr. Lebedev’s career commenced in 1977 at the Russian Academy of Sciences, after which he spent several years as a diplomat, being posted to Russia’s Embassy to the UK as both Third and subsequently Second Secretary.

Director of the Institute for International Economic and Political Studies
Ruslan Grinberg is the director of the Economy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Director of the Institute for International Economic and Political Studies
Ruslan Grinberg is the director of the Economy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Deputy director of the RAN Institute of Economics
This year, he was awarded a European prize for his ‘Contribution to Economics’. With R.S. Greenberg, he co-founded the concept ‘Economic socio-dynamism’, about which more than 10 studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad.

President of the International Institute of Global Development
Mr. Lebedev’s career commenced in 1977 at the Russian Academy of Sciences, after which he spent several years as a diplomat, being posted to Russia’s Embassy to the UK as both Third and subsequently Second Secretary.

Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow
Kirill is an internationally renowned film critic and lecturer in directing and script writing at the Institute for European Culture in Moscow.

Film critic
Plakhov was born in Starokostiantyniv, Ukrainian SSR. After graduating in mechanics and mathematics from Lviv University, he studied history of cinema at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

Doctor of History, Professor at MGIMO University, Moscow
One of the most renowned Russian political experts, he has worked at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Science for many years.

Scriptwriter, 20 Cigarettes
Dmitry was born in 1974 in Moscow. In 2000 he entered the scriptwriting department at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography.

Producer, Best of Times
Born in 1968 in Chelyabinsk, he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics in 1991. In 2003 he became the general director of the Gorky Film Studio.

Alexander Ilichevsky was born in Sumgait, Azerbaijan in 1970 and graduated from a technological institute affiliated to Moscow University in theoretical physics. He worked in scientific research in Israel and California from 1991 to 1998, whereupon he returned to live in Moscow with his family. He is the prolific author of many literary works in various genres, both poetry and prose, all of which have been published in Russia’s most prestigious literary journals, such as Novyi mir (New World), Oktiabr (October) – all to great literary acclaim. His novel Matisse, dedicated to all those born in 1970, like the author himself, won him the Russian Booker Prize in 2007 – one of a record seventy-eight works submitted for consideration for the prize that year. This outstanding achievement is not only testament to Ilichevsky’s great talent as a writer, but also to the fact that Russian literature is alive and flourishing today, perhaps as never before.

Alexander Ilichevsky was born in Sumgait, Azerbaijan in 1970 and graduated from a technological institute affiliated to Moscow University in theoretical physics. He worked in scientific research in Israel and California from 1991 to 1998, whereupon he returned to live in Moscow with his family. He is the prolific author of many literary works in various genres, both poetry and prose, all of which have been published in Russia’s most prestigious literary journals, such as Novyi mir (New World), Oktiabr (October) – all to great literary acclaim. His novel Matisse, dedicated to all those born in 1970, like the author himself, won him the Russian Booker Prize in 2007 – one of a record seventy-eight works submitted for consideration for the prize that year.