Born: 1955
Quick Study: Timur Kibirov’s career began with samizdat poetry during the Soviet era and has come to encompass not only published poetry collections but also works of fiction that have won him a broader readership.
The Kibirov File: With over twenty volumes of poetry to his name, Timur Kibirov is probably best known to Russian readers as a poet: words like conceptual, postmodern, irony, memory, meta, and allusive have followed him, as have labels like “popular.” He began publishing his poetry during the Soviet years as samizdat then was able to publish officially in the late perestroika era when his work, some of it lengthy (indeed, the label “epic” can also be found in descriptions of his poems), faced fewer limitations because of political and religious threads. Many of the features of Kibirov’s poems carry over to his novel The General and His Family, a 2020 Big Book Award finalist. The lengthy novel’s cozy, intimate feel draws the reader in with descriptions of not only family difficulties but also the minutiae of Soviet-era life, complete with humor and cultural references, both high and low. The title character “Lada” in Kibirov’s first book of prose, Lada or Joy: A Chronicle of Loyal and Happy Love, is a dog.
Psssst………: Kibirov began writing poetry as a teenager… He won the “Poet” award in 2008, which came with a $50,000 purse; the award was founded by Anatoly Chubais (news item)…
Kibirov’s Places: Moscow, where he lives…
The Word on Kibirov: Gregory Freidin, emeritus professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Stanford University, wrote of Kibirov’s Sentiments, “As civilizations fall, many poets hear the call for the art of memory that would preserve the traces of past life, but in the end few are chosen. Ostensibly a lyric, self-consciously sentimental poet, Kibirov is among the chosen few whose record of Soviet civilization is savoured by the post-Soviet reader. Every poem in his collection may be used as a basis for a reconstruction of that world, as its clamour continues to resonate in the hearts of its former citizens.”
Kibirov on Kibirov & Writing: Jamie Olson, who has translated many of Kibirov’s poems, quotes Kibirov in this note to his translation of a portion of Romances of the Cheryomushki District for Poetry Northwest, “His poems often feature playful reinterpretations of classic texts, including ancient myths, canonical literary works, Soviet ideology, and even scripture. In a recent interview, Kibirov said, ‘The only thing that a poet needs to do is write good poems. What this means, I can’t begin to judge; no one can know this, there are no criteria . . . And whether a poet uses Old Church Slavonic or the current slang is simply a matter of technique.’”
Kibirov Recommends: In a 2007 poll conducted by the site Seance, Kibirov is noted as saying his favorite childhood book was Ivanhoe and his favorite book as an adult is The Gift.
Born: 1971
Quick Study: Journalist and novelist Shamil Idiatullin writes books in a variety of genres – thrillers, fantasy, children’s books, and psychological dramas – that combine a journalist’s attention to detail with a fiction writer’s imagination.
The Idiatullin File: Shamil Idiatullin’s first published novel, in 2005, was the novel Rucciя (a.k.a. The Tatar Hit), a political thriller that imagines World War 3 breaking out because of a conflict between Tatarstan and Moscow. Fifteen years and several books later, Idiatullin hit the Big Book Award shortlist for the second time with his novel Former Lenin Street – a book covering topics like local politics, personal relationships, and a scandal over waste disposal. His Brezhnev City, a novel about a young boy living in a rough city with an automobile factory in 1983, won third-place jury and readers choice Big Book prizes in 2017. Idiatullin’s most recent book, The Last Time, takes an entirely different tack and has been described as “ethnofantasy,” shuffling his deck of motifs once again.
Psssst………: Idiatullin’s work as a journalist has included serving as the head of newspaper Kommersant’s regional editions department…
Idiatullin’s Places: Ulyanovsk, where he was born, and Naberezhnye Chelny, where he grew up… Kazan, where he studied journalism at Kazan State University…
The Word on Idiatullin: In a review of Former Lenin Street for the National Bestseller Award, critic Mikhail Vizel notes that, "Shamil Idiatullin is a tenacious and observant author who loves not only puns but also unexpected turns of phrase and metaphors."
Idiatullin on Idiatullin & Writing: In discussing his books in an interview with Egor Mikhailov of Afisha, Idiatullin says this of his writing, “I’m a person who’s out screaming on the street corners that I love to write and read about the here and now, that I don’t gravitate toward historical texts. That doesn’t look too sincere after City of Brezhnev turned into my best-known text but what can you do, I haven’t changed that much. That’s why I’ve always proceeded from the assumption that I’m writing about contemporary life, though readers who more or less know me clearly figure that [one of my] books will, ninety percent of the time, be about us, the here and now. And I’m still not used to the fact that a lot were disoriented after City of Brezhnev.”
Idiatullin Recommends: In an interview with Olesya Razina of Literatura Today, Idiatullin mentions that he reads a lot of contemporary Russian authors, adding that the list of authors he thinks should be read keeps growing, thanks to new discoveries. When asked who’s on the list, he names Maria Galina, Sergei Zharkovsky, Eduard Verkin, Leonid Yuzefovich, Alexei Salnikov, Andrei Lyakh, and Linor Goralik. He also notes Guzel Yakhina and Eugene Vodolazkin, saying they write quality texts and also enjoy “huge popularity, print runs of half a million in Russia, and dozens of translations into other languages.”
Born: 1961
Quick Study: Oleg Ermakov’s first published fiction – a cycle of stories about Afghanistan for a literary journal – built on drew experiences in Afghanistan and he continues to write fiction that involves distant places he has visited, often adding mystical elements.
The Ermakov File: Although Oleg Ermakov’s first works of fiction – a cycle of short stories in 1989 and the novel Sign of the Beast, a 1993 Russian Booker Prize finalist – as well as The Arithmetic of War, a 2012 cycle of stories, are informed by his experiences in Afghanistan, many of his later writings explore other geographical, historical, and metaphysical territory. Rainbow and Heather, a 2018 Big Book Award finalist, involves a wedding photographer who visits Ermakov’s native Smolensk and finds a mysterious (and historical) portal, and The Tungus’s Song, a 2017 Yasnaya Polyana Award finalist, concerns a young man who goes to work as a forester in Siberia, where he meets an Evenk man who’s accused of arson and is the grandson of a shaman woman. His 2019 Libgerik (the title is an Evenk name given to a girl who is born at the first slushy snow) is about a couple from Petersburg who go to visit Seoul, where they recall their youth and encounter a dose of mysticism.
Psssst………: Ermakov’s job history includes stints as a newspaper employee, guard, forester, and weather service worker…
Ermakov’s Places: Smolensk (birthplace)… nature preserves in the Altai, Baikal, and Barguzin areas, where he worked as a forester after graduating from high school… Afghanistan, where he fulfilled his Soviet army duty…
The Word on Ermakov: Critic and literary observer Klarisa Pulson referred to Ermakov’s The Tungus’s Song as “the original Twin Peaks” in a piece about the 2017 Big Book longlist.
Ermakov recommends: In a 2012 interview with critic Liza Novikova for The Moscow Review of Books, Ermakov mentions two writers that he thinks write very good prose about Afghanistan: Igor Frolov and Igor Afanasyev.
Born: 1973
Quick Study: Mikhail Elizarov’s books have often arrived with a helping of controversy, thanks to a seeming nostalgia for the Soviet years and details like depicting Boris Pasternak as a demon, but they’ve also been popular with readers, critics, and award juries thanks to Elizarov’s imaginativeness, dark humor, and lyricism.
The Elizarov File: Mikhail Elizarov began publishing fiction in the early 2000s and Fingernails, his first collection published in Moscow, by Ad Marginem, contains stories he wrote beginning at the age of nineteen; Fingernails was a finalist for the 2001 Andrei Bely Award. Elizarov followed Fingernails with Pasternak, which earned highly varied reactions (in part thanks to the demon and other objections to Elizarov’s portrayal of the famous poet), and his next novel, The Librarian, won the 2008 Russian Booker Prize with its story of book gangs fighting battling over rare editions of socialist realist novels. He found further success in NOSE Award reader’s choice voting with his story collection We Went Out for a Seventeen-Year Smoke. Elizarov’s Earth, a long novel (which will apparently be followed by a sequel) that came out in 2019 after a long break, won the 2020 National Bestseller Award, and hit the Big Book Award shortlist by telling the stylistically and narratively complex coming-of-age story of a young man who begins learning about death in early childhood and later works with his brother in the funeral industry.
Psssst………: Elizarov studied opera singing in high school and later invented a personal genre for himself: “bard-punk-chanson”… he has also studied film direction and worked as a cameraman…
Elizarov’s Places: Ivano-Frankovsk, Ukraine, where he was born… Hannover, German, where he studied film directing… Kharkov University, where he studied philology...
The Word on Elizarov: Phoebe Taplin’s review for Russia Beyond of Andrew Bromfield’s translation of The Librarian offers a good summary of controversy over the Russian Booker Prize decision to award The Librarian, even noting the resignation of one committee member, who called the novel “worthless, fascist trash.” Taplin concludes her review by writing, “Sorokin has praised The Librarian for its depiction of ‘Soviet power as an endless squabble’; the book’s many battles also represent the struggle to find meaning in a post-ideological society. With its adolescent combination of existential nihilism and video-game violence, Elizarov’s work is easily underestimated. Like the late Terry Pratchett’s exploration of religious belief in Small Gods, The Librarian is a novel that makes profound questions playful and playfulness profound.”
Links to other English-language reviews of Elizarov’s work are archived on Wikipedia.
Elizarov on Elizarov & Writing: When asked in a 2015 interview with Business Online if he considers himself more of a musician or a writer, Elizarov answered by saying he sees himself as “A person who sometimes writes books and sometimes composes songs and sings them. It depends on where my heart is at a specific moment. Right now it’s been more songs, I’ll do up a book sometime. I evaluate my work when it’s ready.”
Elizarov Recommends: When asked in an interview with Svyat Pavlov of Medium to choose Bulgakov or Sholokhov, Elizarov chose Sholokhov. When asked to list the three most interesting contemporary Russian writers, he thrice said “Zakhar Prilepin.”
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