Who nominates for literary awards? International Literary Prize named after Sergei Yesenin “O Rus', flap your wings...”

Thousands of literary awards are held every year around the world. Millions of applications are submitted to participate. The awards are held nationally and globally, in different categories: children's literature, poetry, fiction and nonfiction, science fiction and fantasy.

From 1969 to 2001, the prize was known as the Booker Prize. Since 2005, the main sponsor of the prize has been the Man Group, and therefore the prize has been renamed the Man Booker Prize. The awards are presented every two years. Initially, the Booker Prize only accepted works from the Commonwealth countries, Zimbabwe and Ireland. But since 2014, the award has acquired international status, which has made it possible to expand the number of participants - a writer from any country whose novel is written in English can become a nominee. English. You can only become a laureate once. The cash prize is 60 thousand pounds sterling. International Prize has a separate award for translating the novel. Since 2016, the Booker Prize has been awarded for translation fiction novel, with the winning author and translator receiving £50,000.

The man credited with founding the Pulitzer Prize was Joseph Pulitzer, a respected journalist from a wealthy family who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The prize is awarded for work in the field of music, literature and journalism, while taking into account the Internet space and printed publications- newspapers and magazines. The Pulitzer Prize is administered by Columbia University and is awarded in 21 categories. Winners of 20 categories are awarded a certificate and $15,000. A gold medal is awarded to one winner by the department civil service journalism competition. Pulitzer Prize for art book was founded in 1918. The first recipient of the prize was Ernest Poole. He received an award for his novel His Family.

Another prestigious literary prize, the Neustadt Prize, originated in the United States in 1969. Its original name was “International Prize foreign literature" she received from her founder - editor foreign books Ivara Ivaska. The award changed its name in 1976 and was named in honor of new sponsors, Walter and Doris Neustadt of Ardmore, Oklahoma. Since that time, the University of Oklahoma has been a permanent sponsor of the award. The winner of the award receives a certificate, a silver eagle feather and $50,000. The award recognizes outstanding work in the fields of drama, poetry and fiction.

The award was established in 1971 under the name Whitbread Prize. In 2006, Costa Coffee became the official sponsor of the award, which led to its renaming to the Costa Award. Applicants may be authors from the UK and Ireland whose works are written in English. The Prize recognizes not only brilliant and outstanding works in the field of literature, but also books that bring pleasure to reading. Promoting reading as an enjoyable pastime is one of the main goals of the award. The prize is awarded in the following categories: Biography, Novel, Children's Literature, Best First Novel and Poetry. The laureates receive 5 thousand pounds sterling.

The American Prize for Literature was introduced in 1994. It is awarded to authors who have made contributions to the field of international writing. In part, the prize was created as an alternative to the famous Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize is sponsored by educational project contemporary art. The prize itself was founded in memory of Anna Farni. Each year, 6 to 8 jurors, including renowned American literary critics, playwrights, poets and writers, meet to determine the winner. The winner does not receive any cash prize for winning.

The prize ranks among the United Kingdom's most coveted literary awards. Original title- Literary Prize "Orange". The prize is awarded annually to a female author, regardless of nationality, for an outstanding full-length novel published in the UK in the past year in English. In 1991, the Booker Prize marked the beginning of the establishment Women's Award in fiction because the committee did not include women in its lists of nominees. After this, a group of men and women working in the literary industry met and considered further actions. The winner of the award receives 30 thousand British pounds sterling and a bronze statuette.

The Hugo Awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, the man behind the science fiction magazine Amazing stories" The prize is awarded for the best work published in the past year and written in the genres science fiction or fantasy. The Hugo Awards are sponsored by the World Science Fiction Society.

The award has been presented at the annual World Science Fiction Convention since 1953 in several categories, including: "Best Short Story", "Best Graphic Story", "Best Fanzine", "Best professional artist", "Best Fancast", "Best Dramatic Presentation" and "Best Fantasy Book".

The prize was established in July 2008 by the University of Warwick. It has no analogues in the world and consists of an interdisciplinary writing competition. Students, alumni and staff of the University of Warwick, as well as those working in the publishing industry, can nominate work. Each year the award is approved new topic. must be written in English.

Every year an international poetry festival takes place in the city of Struga, Macedonia. The most talented people receive the coveted Golden Crown festival award. international poets. The festival was first held in 1961 with the participation of famous Macedonian poets. A few years later, in 1966, the festival was transformed from national to international. In the same year it was founded highest award The Golden Crown Prize, the first winner of which was Robert Rozhdestvensky. Over the years of the award, its laureates have included such outstanding literary figures as Seamus Haney, Joseph Brodsky and Pablo Neruda.

The Nobel Prize is named after Albert Nobel, a man who made significant contributions to the fields of chemistry, literature, engineering and entrepreneurship in the 1800s. Already at the age of 17 he spoke fluently 5 foreign languages. In his will, Albert Nobel stipulated the conditions for establishing the prize and allocated his own money for this. All Nobel Prizes are controlled by different institutions. The Nobel Prize in Literature is administered by the Swedish Academy. The winner receives a medal and cash prize, the size of which varies from year to year. The Academy determines the people and institutions that may be nominated for the award. I have the right to nominate my candidacy as a professor of literature and linguistics at higher education institutions. educational institutions, Nobel Literary Prize laureates and members of the Swedish Academy. Nobel Committee Literature checks candidates and transmits the collected information to the Swedish Academy. The prize has been awarded since 1901 to writers from different countries.

Facts about literary awards - video

Short facts about the most famous awards in the field of literature:

IN literary world A wide variety of prizes are awarded: in the field of poetry and prose, drama and science fiction, lyricism and detective fiction. However, not every prize testifies to the quality of the literature that was awarded.

Generally recognized awards are collected in our Top 10 most prestigious literary awards. From among the winners of these awards, you can safely choose books worthy of reading.

The award was established in the United States by emigrants from Russia in 1999. It is awarded for contribution to the development of Russian-American culture and strengthening international ties between countries. The laureates were V. Aksenov, M. Epstein, V. Bachanyan, O. Vasiliev.

9. Prize H.K. Andersen

This prize is awarded in the field of children's literature, both for the works themselves and for illustrations to them. The prize winners were Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson, Gianni Rodari.

8.

The annual award in the field of literature is presented to laureates selected both by popular vote and by an expert commission. The winners of the 2013 Runet Book Prize have already been named on the pages.

7. Russian Booker

This prize is awarded for best novel in Russian. The laureates of the Russian Booker were Bulat Okudzhava, Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Vasily Aksenov. Along with the main prize, the “Student Booker” is also awarded, the jury of which includes undergraduate and graduate students.

6. Southeast Asian Literary Award

This international literary prize recognizes the best poetry and prose works authors from ASEAN countries. The Chairman of the Prize Organizing Committee is the Prince of Thailand, Prem Purachatra.

5. ABS premium

The Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Prize is awarded for best works in the field of fiction, written in Russian. The award winners are Evgeny Lukin, Kir Bulychev, Dmitry Bykov.

4. Booker Prize

For many, this prize is the most prestigious in the world of English-language literature. The winner is awarded a check for 50,000 British pounds. Four times in history, Booker laureates have also received Nobel Prize according to literature.

3. Prix Goncourt

The French literary prize has been awarded annually since 1903. According to the statute, the prize can be awarded to any author only once during his lifetime. IN different years The Prix Goncourt was awarded to Marcel Proust, Simone de Beauvoir, and Alphonse de Chateaubriand.

2. Pulitzer Prize

This American Award awarded since 1911. The main prize is 10 thousand US dollars. Despite the fact that laureates almost never make it onto the lists book bestsellers, the prize is considered one of the most prestigious in the literary world.

1. Nobel Prize in Literature

This prestigious award is given annually for achievements in the field of literature. The winners are mainly writers from Europe and the United States, so the award is often criticized for bias. Among Russian authors, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Top 15 literary awards, the laureates and nominees of which are worth paying close attention to. If you're wondering what to read, take a look here!

1. National Literary Award " Big book»

The prize was established in 2005 and is one of the most prestigious awards awarded for works of large form published in Russian in the reporting year.
The prize winners over the years were Dmitry Bykov, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Leonid Yuzefovich, Vladimir Makanin, Pavel Basinsky, Mikhail Shishkin, Zakhar Prilepin.
The award jury consists of about 100 people, which ensures the independence and breadth of the award’s expertise. The monetary fund is 5.5 million rubles, of which 3 million goes to the first prize winner. Becoming a winner of this award means not only attracting reader attention to the book, but also increasing consumer demand.

2. Nobel Prize in Literature

On the one hand, the prize, established by the Swedish chemical engineer, inventor of dynamite and industrialist Alfred Nobel, is the most prestigious in the world. On the other hand, it is one of the most controversial, criticized and discussed prizes in the world. Many critics consider the award to be politicized and biased. However, whatever one may say, the writer to whom it is awarded wakes up in the morning famous throughout the world, and sales of his books increase sharply.
Russian writers received the prize five times: 1933 - Bunin, 1958 - Pasternak (who refused the prize), 1965 - Sholokhov, 1970 - Solzhenitsyn, 1987 - Brodsky.

3. Pulitzer Prize

One of the most honorary awards USA in the fields of literature, journalism, music and theater, consistently attracting the interest of readers around the world.

4. Booker Prize

It is rightfully considered one of the most prestigious literary prizes awarded for a work written in English. Salman Rushdie, Richard Flanagan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Iris Murdoch, Julian Barnes, Coetzee, Ondaatje and many others. The list of laureates since 1969 is impressive, some of them later becoming Nobel laureates in literature.

5. Prix Goncourt for Literature

France's main literary prize, established in 1896 and awarded since 1902, is awarded to the author of the best novel or collection of short stories of the year. French, but not necessarily living in France. The prize fund is symbolic, but its award brings fame, recognition and increased sales of his books to the author.

The prize winners were Marcel Proust (1919), Maurice Druon (1948), Simone de Beauvoir (1954).

6. Yasnaya Polyana Award

Established in 2003 by the museum-estate of L. N. Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana” with the support of Samsung Electronics.

Awarded in four categories: “ Modern classics", "XXI Century" - the 2015 laureate was "Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes" by Guzeli Yakhina, "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" and "Foreign Literature".

7. “Enlightener” Award

The Enlightener Award for the best popular science book in Russian was established in 2008 by the founder and Honorary President of the Vimpelcom company (Beeline trademark) Dmitry Zimin and the Dynasty Non-profit Program Fund in order to attract readers' attention to the educational genre, encouragement authors and creating the prerequisites for market expansion educational literature in Russia.

8. Writer of the Year Award

The National Literary Award “Writer of the Year” was established by the Russian Union of Writers with the aim of finding new talented authors who can make a contribution to modern literature. Laureates receive contracts to publish their works, financed by the Russian Writers' Union. The competitive selection of authors is carried out on the literary portal Proza.ru.

9. National Award"Russian Booker"

The prize was established in 1992 on the initiative of the British Council in Russia as the Russian equivalent of the Booker Prize and is awarded for the best novel in Russian published in the reporting year. Its laureates were Bulat Okudzhava, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Vasily Aksenov.

10. Award " National bestseller»

Established in 2001. The motto of the award is: “Wake up famous.” “The purpose of the award is to reveal the otherwise unclaimed market potential of prose works distinguished by high artistry and/or other merits.”
The prize winners were Leonid Yuzefovich, Zakhar Prilepin, Dmitry Bykov, Victor Pelevin.

11. “NOS” Award

Established in 2009 by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation “to identify and support new trends in modern artistic literature in Russian." Main feature awards - openness of the decision-making process, namely: the jury is obliged to publicly justify the choice of finalists and winner in the framework of a talk show in the presence and with the participation of journalists, writers and the cultural community. In addition to the winner of the main prize, the winner of the reader's vote is also determined.

12. “BOOK” Award

All-Russian competition for the best literary work for children and youth, at which final decision accepted by a jury consisting of young readers aged 10 to 16 years.

13. “Debut” Award

An independent literary prize for authors writing in Russian and not older than 35 years. Established in 2000 by Andrey Skoch’s Generation Foundation. The award coordinator is writer Olga Slavnikova. It is important that a contract for the publication of his work is concluded with the prize winner in each category.

14. Book of the Year Award

Established in 1999 by the Federal Agency for Press and mass communications. Awarded during the MIBF in nine categories.

15. International Children's Literary Award named after Vladislav Krapivin

Established in 2006 by the Ural Writers Association. The prize accepts works for children and teenagers. It is important that the work be written in Russian with a volume of at least 1.5 author’s pages (60 thousand characters with spaces).

Hello cats!

Unfriendly Rabbit is on the air, and today we'll talk about one of the many ways to make your reading more conscious and organized. IN live- an overview of the most important literary awards for those who write in Russian. Who came up with the idea, who decides who to nominate, and who decides who to reward, what they give, what to read. A treasure trove of knowledge under the cut!

Story
The official wording of the Russian Booker is “a prize for the best novel in Russian, first published this year.” The prize was established in 1992 by the British Council, similar to the British Booker. But today the Republic of Belarus is structured completely differently. For example, in England, 4 Booker finalists subsequently received the Nobel Prize. In Russia it is unofficially believed that a prize is given to a potential bestseller. Time will tell how true this statement is.

Who gives?
In Russia there is a Booker Committee, which is headed by Igor Shaitanov (Russian critic, literary critic and editor-in-chief of Voprosy Literatury), and it was to this committee that the management of the prize was transferred. The jury of the Republic of Belarus changes every year. It consists of five people - critics, philologists, writers, and the fifth place is usually occupied by a representative of some other art. Initially, there was a panel of nominators, but now publishers and publishers (for example, magazines) can nominate books for the award.

What do they give?
The prize fund of the Russian Booker this year was $20,000. All other finalists receive one thousand dollars each. The prize is financed as part of British Petroleum's charitable program.

What to read?
Prize winners for recent years became Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Mikhail Shishkin, Alexander Ilichevsky, Olga Slavnikova, Elena Chizhova, Mikhail Elizarov and others. The biggest incident happened in 2010, when Elena Kolyadina received the prize with her pornographic novel “Flower Cross”.

Rabbit reviews of the winners' novels :

Story
One of the largest literary awards in Russia and the CIS. It is given to all genres - from fiction to memoirs and documentaries, which often causes confusion in the shortlists. Both manuscripts and already published works are accepted. Publishers, juries, media, creative unions and even authorities can nominate for the award. state power and the authors themselves (if the work is published).
Established the “Center for Support of Domestic Literature” award, organized by Alfa Bank, Renova, Mamut, Abramovich, Medved magazine and others. The Board of Trustees of the award, in particular, includes: Stepashin, Shvydkoy, director of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vsevolod Bagno, general director of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company Dobrodeev, chief of Rospechat Seslavinsky, general director of the Russian State Library Fedorov and other characters. And the Chairman of the Council is Vladimir Grigoriev, a book reader and deputy head Federal agency in Printing and Mass Communications.

Who gives?
The long list is robbed by the Council of Experts. Its chairman is permanently the deputy. editor-in-chief of the magazine New world» Mikhail Butov.
The shortlist is decided by the Jury or the Literary Academy. It consists of more than 100 people - professionals from literature, culture, science, art, public figures, journalists, officials and entrepreneurs. The chairmen of the Literary Academy (jury) over the years were: Granin, Radzinsky, Makanin, Bitov, Polyakov, Arkhangelsky and others. The winner is determined by the number of points scored during voting.
Since 2008, readers can also vote for the finalists.

What do they give?
The prize is considered the second largest after the Nobel in size. prize fund. It is financed by the Center for Support of Russian Literature, consisting of Russian businessmen and structures.
The winner receives 3 million rubles, the second prize winner receives 1.5 million rubles, and the third prize winner receives 1 million rubles.

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Story
St. Petersburg Prize, established in 2001 by the publisher (Limbus Press) and writer Konstantin Tublin. The prize is also awarded for the best novel of the year written in Russian. The motto of the award is “Wake up famous!”

Who gives?
The unique thing about this award is that you can see who nominated whom. Lists of nominators and nominees are posted on the award website (and these lists are almost more interesting than the award itself). Nominators are appointed by the organizing committee and emphasize that its goals are to gather representatives of all tastes and literary schools. It is also interesting that the winner shares his prize with the person who nominated him!
First, each member of the Grand Jury, which is formed from literary critics different directions and never gets together, selects 2 works from the long. Gives one 3 points, the other 1 point.
From those who scored the most points, a shortlist is formed.
And then the Small Jury, which can already consist of anyone (“enlightened readers”), makes its choice. Moreover, the right to break a tie is given to the Honorary Chairman (which is why, for example, through the efforts of Ksenia Sobchak in 2011, the prize was won by Bykov’s passable novel, and not by Figl-Migl’s wittiest work).
By the way, the winner becomes a member of the Small Jury next year.

What do they give?
The winner receives $10,000, which, as we have already said, is divided in a 7:3 ratio between him and the nominator. The remaining finalists each receive $1,000. By the way, interesting fact- the prize will be given to the author only if he is present at the award ceremony. That is, in St. Petersburg on the last Friday of May.

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The youngest award. Established in 2009 by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation “to identify and support new trends in modern literary literature in Russian.” It ended up on this list and took off thanks to the fact that it attracts prominent critics and literary figures. And also because it differs sharply from all other awards in the openness of the voting process - jury members publicly justify their choice in the framework of open debate.

Who gives?
The long list is selected by an Expert Council of three people, and the winner is selected by a jury of 4 people and the Chairman, who has, as it were, 2 votes. And the jury and experts, in turn, are selected by the Prize’s Board of Trustees. These can be writers, critics and other cultural and public figures from any country. The main thing is that they speak Russian and know our lit. context. In the final debate, experts can express their point of view and even give 1 vote to one of the nominees (if all three made the same choice).
By the way, readers can also vote.

What do they give?
As is already clear, NOS is financed by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. The winner receives 700,000 rubles, the winner of the reader vote - 200,000 rubles, and each finalist - 40,000 rubles.

What to read?
There are very few winners, so we can list them all. Since 2009, respectively: Lena Eltang with the novel “Stone Maples”, Vladimir Sorokin with the story “Blizzard”, Igor Vishnevetsky with the story “Leningrad”, Lev Rubinstein with the book “Signs of Attention”.
The Internet, in turn, chose: “Sugar Kremlin” by Sorokin, “Entre. The Story of a Collection” by Sofia Veshnevskaya, “Skunk Camera” by Andrei Astvatsaturov and “ Early years nurse Parovozov" Alexey Motorov.
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Story
The Andrei Bely Prize has always stood apart. Firstly, she is almost 35 years old. Secondly, it is non-state, and never has been. In the USSR it was the only regular dissident prize in the field of culture. Thirdly, it was founded by a samizdat magazine. The fate and significance of samizdat in Soviet times difficult to overestimate.
In 1997, when things got warmer, the prize began to be supported by: the Anna Akhmatova Museum, the New Literary Review and the A-Z Society of Contemporary Art. Now among the supporters are named: “Ivan Limbach Publishing House” and “Amphora”.
Today the prize is awarded in 4 categories: poetry, prose, humanitarian research and for special merits in the development of Russian literature. Award criteria include experimentation and innovation. The award can only be received once.

Who gives?
Prize laureates, members of the Committee and members of the Advisory Council of the Prize can nominate works. Moreover, these may be works published in the last three years.
The committee that decides who should give the prize consists of three parts. The first is the founders of the prize, Boris Ivanov and Boris Ostanin. The second is three permanent members of the Committee invited by the founders. And the third - four temporary juries for a year. All names can be viewed at

Are literary prizes necessary?

Chairman of the board of a non-profit association
Kunst im Dialog e.V. (Germany),
consultant to a number of German publishing houses on issues
Russian literature and the Russian book publishing market,
literary agent

There are countless literary awards around the world. Many of them appeared quite a long time ago. Prizes in the field of literature are an encouragement for authors, both moral and material. This promotion has a very great value for the development and further creativity of both the author who received the prize and the literary process, which, in turn, influences the ideology of the state. If we continue this chain further, we will see the impact on the position of the nation in the world community and on the world community itself. As you know, the largest and most prestigious world prize in the field of literature is the Nobel Prize, established by Alfred Bernhard Nobel and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy.

This publication will focus on literary awards. Russian Federation and their influence on literary and social processes in Russia and the world.

The institution of literary awards in the Russian Federation is quite developed. Awards for the best literary works was awarded back in Tsarist Russia, V mid-19th centuries, but they were common to both writers and scientists. Later, in late XIX century, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences established a special literary prize, and already in the USSR before the Great Patriotic War was established Stalin Prize according to literature. If you take total number literary awards in Russia, there are several hundred of them. Many are not only large, but also small provincial cities have their own literary prizes, which speaks about high level their cultures. The purpose of Russian literary awards is to increase social significance Russian literature, attracting attention to it. Individual awards also have their own specific goals. For example, " Yasnaya Polyana» supports authors who are followers of the morals and ideals of Leo Tolstoy, the ideals of humanistic prose and poetry, in whose works the centuries-old traditions of Russian culture are expressed.

Judging by the list of awards existing today on the Internet, there may be several dozen of them in one form or another. big city, and they are named, as a rule, in honor of Soviet and Russian writers- Anna Akhmatova, Fyodor Abramov, Yuri Mamleev, etc. There are also prizes awarded by thick magazines such as “Znamya”, “New World”, “Youth”, etc.

The main literary awards in Russia are the “Big Book”, “Russian Booker”, “National Bestseller”. There are equally well-known, but smaller ones, for example NOS (New Literature), which was established by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. Almost every award has several nominations, through which you can celebrate and encourage more authors. The main difference between the NOS Prize and others is that the work of evaluating and arguing the jury members for each candidate for the award takes place publicly. By the way, another difference from most awards is that there is also a reader vote.

The Russian Booker Prize is a daughter of the British literary prize Booker Prize. This prize was first awarded in 1969, and the “Russian Booker” - in 1992.

The Big Book has an incredibly large expert council - more than a hundred people. The selection of the main laureates of this award is very impressive. Right during the ceremonial presentation, in another room, the final small jury gathers, the final authority that distributes the three awards included in the “Big Book”.

“Yasnaya Polyana” and “Belkin Prize” are less significant awards, but they have their place in the literary process.

The “Russian Prize” was established to support authors who write in Russian but live abroad, and is also awarded for best translation works of Russian literature.

The Debut Prize is for the best young authors. Moreover, this award has many nominations: prose, poetry, drama, short story, criticism. Many more different literary prizes can be named, but the purpose of this article is to analyze the internal processes in literature, which are influenced by such external factors as the awarding of literary prizes.

Literary awards- these are enterprises where there is a directorate, accounting department, employees who are involved in organizing and conducting the process of accepting and reviewing works, forming a jury, organizing a PR campaign and the final award ceremony. Very important point— financing. It can be either state-owned - for example, the Agency for Press and Mass Communications supports the Big Book Prize - or private - the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation finances the NOS Prize, which is headed by his sister Irina Prokhorova, the Generation Foundation finances the Debut Prize, etc. d.

Of particular note is the Enlightener Award for best books in the field of popular science literature. It was established in 2008 by the founder of the Dynasty Foundation, Dmitry Zimin. The purpose of the prize is to popularize science and expand the market for popular science literature. There are two categories in this award - natural sciences And humanities. In addition, the bonus also has a cash equivalent.

There are literary prizes that are awarded by publishing houses. Naturally, presenting such a prize to the author of that same publishing house is absolutely meaningless. Moreover, it is not entirely clear. After all, the purpose of the prize is to celebrate a work that has become an event in the literary process. And by choosing the work of this particular author for publication in its magazine, the publishing house has already distinguished it from the general series. Nevertheless, when assessing the grounds for receiving a prize in this case, preference is still given to the authors of this publishing house, and new, perhaps more talented ones, are passed over. Here, harm is done both to the author who was not noted and to literature as a whole.

Often the jury's choice is not based on the actual uniqueness of the text, but on the preferences of the jury members, whose composition is not always constant. For example, in the jury of the Russian Booker Prize, its members and chairman change every year. This doesn't help objective assessment works submitted for the prize. As a result, the winners are determined by a jury consisting of random people with different taste preferences. There is also the purely human sympathies and antipathies of the jury members towards the authors participating in the competition. This does not always help stimulate the literary process, and from a moral point of view it is also not entirely correct. Some experts propose to reform or reorient the goals and objectives of literary awards and, in this regard, the essence of such awards. First of all, this applies to literary trends. Nowadays, the winners are mainly not works of traditional trends, such as realism or its varieties, which allow some deviation, but works that are considered innovative, that is, unrealistic. The term “postmodernism” is a passport to the community of shortlisted members and award winners. The principles of specialization of various awards by genre and form are proposed. There are calls for juries to view prize-nominated works not as recreational reading, but as objects of study. The specialization of literary prizes, according to experts, would strengthen their ability to guide the reader, who would be informed about the essence of the work that received the prize, awarded for the fulfillment of specific tasks in literature.

Valery Pecheykin (photographer - Ira Polyarnaya)

Like any business, some awards die if they are handled by non-professionals or if funding is cut off, especially during an economic crisis.

Literary awards are integrated into the book publishing industry. Prizes in the field of literature are a tool for promoting Russian literature to not only Russian but also foreign readers. Literary agents know that immediately after shortlists are announced, and especially after an author is awarded a prize, foreign publishers approach him, because the prize is a navigator for the publisher in finding authors who, if their books are published, can make a profit. Awarding a prize makes the names of new authors known, but even this does not guarantee that works that receive a prize will be published. An interested publisher, if he does not see prospects for selling the book, for example, for a reason high quality text, or even due to the political orientation of not only a specific text, but also the author himself, is unlikely to accept it for publication. Prizes, of course, enliven cultural life, people discuss, argue, express their opinions. We can say that literary prizes are a sociocultural phenomenon that attracts modern literature the attention of not only specialists, but also the reading community as a whole and the individual reader. At the same time, the reputation of a particular writer is formed. And not necessarily positive. An author who is awarded a prestigious prize immediately increases his status - he becomes a laureate. But in the future, if he does not receive other awards or his books are not published abroad, his rating may gradually fall. And vice versa, a talented author who is not awarded a prize also acquires a special status - he becomes a hero who is undeservedly, for some, perhaps, secret reasons, squeezed by literary experts. But his fame doesn't bring him large circulations books and awards. This is a kind of dissidence. It must be said that the path to the prize and even to the long, and even more so to the short list is very difficult. Hitting short list literary prize is already a direct path to the prize.

Authors awarded a literary prize arouse the interest of not only readers and publishers. Prizes divide authors into groups: first - those who are awarded the prize; second - those who were shortlisted; the third is everyone else, although this group often contains more talented writers than the first two. Such authors include, for example, Yuri Nechiporenko and Daniel Orlov, who have been awarded several minor literary awards, including online ones, but have not yet received significant award in the field of literature.

Authors may not be in the forefront for various non-literary reasons. Often - due to political position the author or the text itself. This reason is also an obstacle to publishing the author’s work abroad, where there is a strict tie between authors and ideology that corresponds to the declared “Western values.”

Literary prizes are undoubtedly useful, but at the same time they are harmful. You could say that prizes are literature killers. The criterion of artistry is being displaced. Some authors write for a prize, for example, for the “Big Book”. Already famous authors, awarded with literary prizes, allow themselves to simply “expand the text” to the format of a thick book. Although there have been cases where the Big Book Prize was awarded to a work of a regular format. As already mentioned, the fate of the book and the author depends on the tastes of the jury members and other subjective reasons.

Separately, it can be noted positive role The Debut Prize, which gave the green light to many young authors who have already become famous. This is, for example, Valery Pecheikin, a playwright who successfully collaborates with the Gogol Center, where his plays are staged, which can be called in a good way innovative.

If we draw a line under everything written, we can say that despite all their shortcomings, bonuses are needed. It’s hard to imagine without them literary process and the reading community, as well as book publishing and distribution.