Russian literary prize winner unlikely choice

In this story: Award often goes to obscure books Attempt to rethink classical Russian novel RELATED STORIES, SITES

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A Russian emigre living in Switzerland returned home to pick up one of his country's most coveted literary prizes at a lavish ceremony on Tuesday with a novel so complex it makes Dostoyevsky look like light reading.

The Smirnoff-Booker award for the best novel of the year in Russian, worth $12,500 to the winner, went to Mikhail Shishkin for "The Taking of Izmail" -- an original work of intense prose with a highly complicated structure.

At the evening ceremony in a plush Moscow hotel, with vodka flowing freely, there were precious few people who had read the 440-page novel, one of the favorites from a shortlist of six.

Shishkin, a bearded 40-year-old, told a news conference he was surprised at the jury's decision but he hoped the public recognition would translate into new readers.

"When I was working on this text I thought I had received my prize the moment the text came to me," he said. "Every day I felt I received a prize when it seemed to me that some word was well chosen."

The unassuming author, a Muscovite who has lived in Zurich for the past five years, said he was realistic about his novel's prospects before it was published last year in the Russian journal Znamya (Banner).

"If it had been rejected, if they had said no normal person could read this, it would be the correct thing to do, so I was already happy when Znamya told me they would publish it."

The Smirnoff-Booker prize, an offshoot of Britain's Booker literary prize, has been awarded for the past nine years, often for obscure works that have failed to stir the public at large.

Russia's most widely read contemporary writer, Boris Akunin, did not even figure on this year's shortlist.

Nikolai Alexandrov, literary critic for the Ekho Moskvy radio station, said "The Taking of Izmail" would be published in Russia soon by Vagrius, but he did not expect big sales.

"It will be very difficult to promote this author to a mass readership, because it is a very difficult novel to read."

Shishkin himself declined to describe the content or the message behind "The Taking of Izmail," saying: "Don't expect me to reply to that."

When pressed to elaborate on the idea behind the novel, he replied: "No."

Apparently wanting his work to speak for itself, he told Reuters later that it was impossible to use "horizontal language" to explain things in a comprehensible way.

"If someone reads my novel and understands something for themselves I will be happy," he said.

Alexandrov described "The Taking of Izmail" as an unusual novel and an attempt to rethink the classical Russian novel, in which there exists a hero or cast of heroes around which the central theme is built.

"Mikhail Shushkin takes a new path," he said, adding that heroes appear and disappear, various story lines develop, building up readers' expectations before changing tack in a free-ranging journey from one character and episode to another.

Explaining the title of the book, which refers to a late 18th century battle between Turkish and Russian troops, Alexandrov said the novel was also about someone who approached life with a combative passion.

"Life has to be lived like you are storming fortress. Life puts obstacles before you like the defender of a fortress."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The St. Petersburg Times: Smirnoff-Booker Prize

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