Board of Experts

Expert Council on nominees and finalists for the first season of the Dar Prize

Prize institutions and literary contests in various fields of fine literature have long been a familiar feature and one of the distinctive features of literature of the XX-XXI centuries. Any literary prize is a significant social instrument, not just rewarding, encouraging or stimulating an author(s) in a particular field of literature, and its role goes beyond pure aesthetics. The prize cannot but fulfill social functions and is directly related to publishers, book market, critics, readers, public sentiment, aesthetic, political, ideological preferences and demands.

The prize acts simultaneously as an organizer of the literary process, as a barometer or indicator of the current state of literature and as a kind of provocateur, initiating disputes and discussions (which is, in fact, the essence of the literary process in many respects), influencing the book market and the system of literary priorities.

The main challenges within this very broad framework are defined in different ways by the prizes. The Dar Prize is no exception. The basic principles and criteria for selection, the specifics of the procedure, the conditions for participation and the structure of the Dar Prize are set out in the Regulation. 

Of course, The Council of Experts kept within these guidelines, which did not preclude discussions and divergent preferences.

No prize can claim absolute objectivity in the selection and unanimous recognition of the laureate(s), even in the context of the objectives set. The decision of experts and the Jury is collegial, that is, by definition, the result of disputes, so the relativity of the judgments made is inevitable, as well as the inevitability of polemics about the award decisions.

The Dar Prize began its work during the war raging in Europe, Russia's invasion of Ukraine. These events cannot be characterized otherwise than as a catastrophe, claiming and crippling the lives and destinies of millions of people, not to mention the global devastation in humanitarian fields, in culture, language, communications and links. The consequences of this catastrophe will be felt and healed for a long time to come. 

The topical context certainly affected most of the submissions. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized at once: the determining criterion for the experts was not the subject matter, not the agenda - but the artistic significance or persuasiveness, regardless of the author's chosen genre and method of writing. 

A large number of strong documentary texts written by witnesses of the Russian invasion from the Ukrainian side were nominated for the award. Actually, they show how any “literature” is powerless to describe what is happening. The author's main attitude here is that fiction, “literature” is abolished. In the chaos of life being shattered, there is only what is in front of the eyes. Only this can be told, only this can be described. And while the need to make sense of what is happening is incredibly high, there are still few opportunities to find the right words in 2022. Such voices mostly come from within the events, a direct reaction to the war. “I used to write grotesque, speculative stories. Now reality itself is grotesque. No need to make things up, only to write them down,” writes Andrei Krasnyashchikh in his book (1). Although this strategy of writing down rather than inventing seems to be the most appropriate for the moment, I wish it were not the only one, that there were more opportunities for reflection. 

Among the notable texts nominated for the prize are quite a few retrospective novels. Their authors (Anna Berseneva, Karina Cockrell-Ferré, Nikolai Kononov, Alla Dubrovskaya, and even a wonderful novella in the young adult genre by Anna Krasilshchik) (2) look at the past from a modern catastrophe and try to find in it the seeds of a catastrophic present. 

If the reality of today cannot be comprehended and described as a whole, then one can try to convey it by means of a parable or a new novel (Denis Beznosov, Victor Melamed - (3)), or by means of poetic prose (Ruslan Komadei, Stanislav Snytko (4)). 

War brings with it chaos and destruction and goes beyond the battle zone. The world passes into a state of war, abolishing, crossing out the pre-war norms and habits of life, putting everyone in the face of catastrophe. Existential problems of self-identification, self-understanding, and goal-setting become especially acute. How to live through the collapsed apocalypse, how to exist in it and what is the meaning of this existence. The stamp of this problematic lies on many works. Not only Daria Serenko's book “I Wish Ashes to My House”, which bursts into a scream, is read in this context, but also the seemingly “non-military” texts by Roman Osminkin and Anastasia Vepreva, Sergei Davydov, and Riva Yevstifeeva (5).

Creating a prize is almost always a challenge and an experiment. Creating a new prize in a time of crisis, war, emigration, and social division is a double experiment. 

The Dar Prize is being created in a new reality, but at the same time it is this new reality. If at first there were fears that there would be few participants in the competition, that the publishing picture would be poor and the texts monotonous, etc., they were quickly dispelled. Both well-known authors and authors not at all familiar to the general public, both new publishers and publishers with a name in Russia and abroad took part in the Prize. And the texts sent to the contest surprised with the variety of genres, themes, styles, and aesthetic attitudes. Among the submitted works one could find everything from books for children to documentary and diary prose and essays. 

This “multicoloredness” also distinguishes the list of finalists.

It seems to us to have become a balanced decision. The personal choice of each of the Council of Experts looks somewhat different, but on the whole we were able to agree on a single result. And the fact that the shortlist turned out to be rather motley reflects, perhaps, the main tendency of this period - the absence of any trends. This year's shortlist is a testament to a time when some topics have not yet had time to accelerate and others have not yet had time to stop.

The number of finalists did not include authors who were noted in the personal lists of the Expert Council members and could well have been in the final:: Asya Mikheyeva's talented and complex fiction “Borders of Wednesdays” (6), Mikhail Goncharok and his “Serpentine” (7) with a wandering between the fantastic and the real, where the past is seen as a funny and vivid dream, Valery Bochkov's “Indian Summer” (8), which combines the aspiration to the future with the ability to add a good bit of absurdity to this future, the unusual and vivid prose of Maria Malmi (9), the already mentioned works by Ruslan Komadei and Stanislav Snytko.

The goal of the Dar Prize - to find new authors whose texts deserve to be translated into a foreign language - has set a selection vector leading away from recognized names and obvious solutions. The prize prioritizes writers whose works have not been translated into English, French and German. This, too, influenced the decision of the Board of Experts. The final list does not include, unfortunately, the names of Anna Berseneva, Dmitry Bykov, Alexander Ilichevsky, Alexei Makushinsky, Daria Serenko, which in no way detracts from the significance of their works. The books by Mikhail Epstein, Natalia Gromova, and Pyotr Aleshkovsky are also undoubtedly noteworthy, as are the remarkable philological studies by Irina Surat and Irina Vinokurova (10).

In any case, we think the shortlist is both representative and interesting. In addition, the works included in the shortlist are fascinating and exciting reading, in some cases acutely dramatic, in others unusually bright and hopeful, in others ironic and even simply funny.

The Dar Prize begins its work at a time when Russian-language literature and the Russian language itself are undergoing serious challenges. The war in Ukraine has led not only to division within Russia, but also to alienation from Russian-speaking culture outside the country. And this tragedy seems more terrible and larger than the one that occurred a hundred years ago after the Revolution and the Civil War and led to the exodus and emigration of many thousands of people. But back then the problem was more of an ideological one, and in the most general terms it was a choice between Soviet Russia and Russian emigration. Today, Russian-language culture as such is often questioned in the eyes of the rest of the world. We would like to believe that the Dar Prize marks the beginning of a new movement, affirming the value of Russian-language literature, independent and free from the poison of totalitarianism and imperial ambitions.

Bibliography (references)

¹Andrei Krasnyashchikh. God is +/- : Freedom Letters, 2023. (https://freedomletters.org/books/bog-est)
²Anna Berseneva. Rhine gold. — Toronto: «Litsvet», 2023;https://babook.org/drupal/sites/default/files/2024-03/Gold1.pdf);

Karina Cockrell-Ferré. Lucha - K.: Oleg Fedorov's Publishing House, 2022.https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/lusha.html?srsltid=AfmBOoq3vJfPAKsbFZyYtcDwu-r8GLdPjmXrRn6GUBYVzVZD-HYglcpz);

Alla Dubrovskaya. The orange tree - K.: Oleg Fedorov's Publishing House, 2023.https://vtoraya-literatura.com/pdf/dubrovskaya_apelsinovoe_derevo_2023__izd.pdf);

Nikolai V. Kononov. The Night We Disappeared. — Moscow: Individuum, 2022 (https://individuum.ru/books/noch-kogda-my-ischezli/);
Anna Krasilshchik. The Mystery of Monsieur Carotte. — М.: Belaya vorona, 2023 (https://murawei.de/r017727.html)

³Beznosov Denis. Evidence of Habitat St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2023
(https://www.labirint.ru/books/964651/);

Melamed, Victor. Dickson - Tel Aviv. Babel Bookstore Publishing House, 2023 (https://babelbooksberlin.com/collections/viktor-melamed?srsltid=AfmBOopS5y821lzBxvB3IKU7qghWvguue3iZYRNOELK47QLhQ-9Qz_zW)

⁴Stanislav Snytko. History of prose in descriptions of the Earth - M.: Novoye literaturnoye obozrenie, 2023 (https://murawei.de/r019799.html);

Ruslan Komadei. Krym-tupik / Polyphemus — Moscow, 2022 (https://books.google.de/books/about/Крым_тупик.html?id=5O2XzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y)

⁵Daria Serenko. I wish ashes to my house - Tel Aviv. Babel Bookstore Publishing House, 2023 (https://babelbooksberlin.com/products/я-желаю-пепла-дому-своему?srsltid=AfmBOopta8v6ki7M_3U0VV2NZ8YW2SKsP6Y81i8q_xeYh95wtdwnX2Fk);

Roman Osminkin, Anastasia. Vepreva Kommunalka on Petrogradka.  - M.: Novoye literaturnoye obozrenie, 2022 (https://www.nlobooks.ru/books/khudozhestvennaya_slovesnost/24283/);

Sergei Davydov. “Springfield.” — Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/books/springfild);

Riva Evstifeeva. Internship Stories. — Éditions Tourguenef, 2023 (https://www.globusbooks.com/pages/books/12342/r-evstifeeva/internatskie-rasskazy)

⁶Asya Mikheeva. Boundaries of the medium. — Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/books/granitsy-sred)
⁷Mikhail Goncharok. Serpentine. - Boston: Impress, 2022 (https://mgraphics-books.com/product/serpentine-goncharok/)
 
⁸Valery Bochkov. Indian Summer: Stories after the end of the world. — Нью-Йорк: Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/books/babe-leto-povesti-posle-kontsa-sveta)

⁹Marja Malmi. My green face says it all. — М.: Белая ворона;«Издательство Альбус корвус», 2023 (https://albuscorvus.ru/product/na-moem-zelenom-litse-vse-napisano/)
 
¹⁰Alexander Ilichevsky. Narrow sky, wide river. - Tel Aviv. Babel Bookstore Publishing House, 2023 (https://www.vidimbooks.com/products/ilichevsky/440857000000398274?srsltid=AfmBOorh47oAFd4B6f9bgkn3umdbp2QJiveXtEeXms7hjo0hwLCSGcbO).

Dmitry Bykov. The majority: a collection of stories. — Freedom Letters, 2023. (https://freedomletters.org/books/bol-shinstvo)

Alexei Makushinsky. Demetrius: A Novel. — Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/authors/40).

Mikhail Epstein. Russian Anti-World. Politics on the verge of apocalypse. — USA Franc-Tireur, 2023 (https://books.google.de/books/about/Русский_антимир.html?id=wd-1zwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y)

Natalia Gromova. House Museum. - Sefer Publishing House, Israel, 2023 (https://www.knigasefer.com/books/other?pgid=ltztrgcj-a98d00e4-c8a1-4574-b11c-c645798ac4b4)

Peter Aleshkovsky. Chronicles of the Russian-Ukrainian war.- Jerusalem: MG Library, 2022 (https://libertylisbon.com/books/p-aleshkovskij-hroniki-russko-ukrainskoj-vojny/)

Irina Surat. Toughness and Tenderness: On the Poetry of Osip Mandelstam. – M.: Progress-Traditsiya, 2022 (https://www.litres.ru/book/irina-surat/tyazhest-i-nezhnost-o-poezii-osipa-mandelshtama-68779122/)

Irina Vinokurova. Nina Berberova: known and unknown. - St. Petersburg: Academic Studies Press / Bibliorossica, 2023 (https://digital.wildberries.ru/offer/274124)

Expert Opinions

Evgeniya Vezhlyan

After February 24, much has changed on the Russian literary scene. The major “liberal” prizes were clearly caught in the grip of state censorship and therefore restricted in their decisions. Those prizes associated with independent initiative communities, such as the Dragomoshchenko Prize, have suspended their work for ethical reasons. Indeed, the ethical side of things comes to the fore. The establishment of the Dar Prize makes us wonder why such literary prizes are needed at all in the current situation. 
Undoubtedly, in recent years in Russia, the main function of prizes has been the formation of the literary mainstream, which cannot but be affiliated with institutions such as large publishers and thick magazines (in this context, prizes working on the idea of complex and non-commercial literature were perceived as “anti-premiums”; such were the Nos Prize or the White Prize). Sociologists would say that the mainstream is always dependent on the resources provided by power, and, in this sense, the anti-mainstream pole of literature is at the same time a pole charged with an oppositional potential to power. 
 
It is clear that in contemporary Russia the field of mainstream literature will sooner or later be transformed to suit current state needs, no matter how much those to whom these state needs are alien and repugnant keep in their pockets, and the field opposing it will be gradually ousted from the public space, up to complete marginalization. Under these conditions, the “other” Russian-language literature, that is, literature opposing the Russian authorities, even if it is not directly protesting, but covertly carrying a different message, has little chance of being manifested. It finds itself out of public space. And not only when the book is not printed in Russia, but also when it is printed or present in the Russian book market (i.e. it can be bought for Russian rubles). The book falls into a certain “flickering” zone, when it can be mentioned, or it is even possible to publish a review of it, but it is impossible to say what constitutes the meaning of such a book in direct text. It seems that this situation requires institutions that would work as “manifestations” of this “other” Russian literature and would not be connected to the Russian authorities in any way, or better yet, would be delocalized. In other words, the Dar Prize is a tool for this kind of manifestation. And now we can already say that this tool is quite working, because the array of texts submitted for the prize gives an idea of the current trends in the literature written around February 24. 
 
Reading the premium stream allowed us to notice several trends. Their detailed comprehension is still ahead, but now I would like to simply record them, in an arbitrary order.
 
First, it should be noted that among the notable texts nominated for the prize are quite a few novels about the past. And all of them are flashback novels. The authors of these novels (Anna Berseneva, Karina Cockrell-Ferré, Nikolai Kononov, Alla Dubrovskaya, and even Anna Krasilshchik (1), even though this is a text from a completely different genre cluster - young adult literature) look at the past from a modern catastrophe, and try to reinvent (here, perhaps, this word will be appropriate) the threads of connection between this present and its prehistory, to find in the past those moments that are this prehistory. In this case, the focus is unexpectedly not on the subject of Stalin's repressions (although it is also there), but on the revolution of 1917 - the beginning of the Soviet project, which is now coming to its final conclusion. This explanatory task is unexpectedly juxtaposed with two others. One is the irresistible urge for the reception of recognition, which testifies to the coherence of a disintegrating world and thus to hope, and the other is what might be called the decolonization of the past. The past in these texts is shown without a generalizing vantage point, always through the eyes of the Other, and this Other is most often a minority, a subaltern: a stateless person, a woman, a child...In general, this “decolonization of the gaze” is the result of the first season of the prize (which is not surprising). What to do with the Other, the other, how to dehierarchize the very position of the author, the storyteller, the narrator, how to go beyond the dominant paradigms and ideologies when we write about modernity? And what should we do in this situation with our own identity, which has suddenly become unbearably problematic? The texts by Roman Osminkin and Anastasia Vepreva, Marja Malmi, Sergei Davydov, Riva Evstifeeva (and Daria Serenko's “I Wish Ashes to My House” should be mentioned separately) (2) are among those that raise these questions by the very structure of the narrative.
 
If we move away from fiction, we should of course mention a large number of strong documentary texts written by witnesses of the Russian invasion from the Ukrainian side. In fact, they show how any “literature” is powerless to describe what is happening. The documentary nature of these texts is due to the fact that fiction is abolished. In the chaos of life being crushed, there is only what is in front of one's eyes. Only this can be told, only this can be described. This same circumstance gives rise to another tendency. It could be called “hyperfiction.” If a real catastrophe cannot be described as a whole, if it is not given to speech for its comprehension, then it can try to be conveyed by means of a parable or a new novel, as Beznosov and Melamed did, or by means of poetic prose to fix a linguistic shift at the junction of the poetic and the political, as Komadei and Snytko do. 
Some of these trends are reflected in the texts included in the final list. It is remarkable that the task of the prize - to find new authors whose texts deserve to be translated into a foreign language - has set a selection vector that leads away from recognized names and obvious solutions. Thus, the final list did not include Alexei Makushinsky, Daria Serenko, Dmitry Bykov (3), which in no way diminishes the importance of their works. The list of finalists is largely (as always) the result of consensus. And although some texts and authors were included in the list unanimously (the jury members tried not to influence each other, it should be noted), there could have been other authors on my final list. There is no doubt that the complex, multidimensional texts of Andrei Ivanov, Stanislav Snytko, Ruslan Komadei (4) deserve attention - on the one hand, and on the other hand, the non-fiction of Natalia Gromova and Pyotr Aleshkovsky... (5) But there were more than 12 wonderful texts nominated for the prize. The choice was difficult. 

Elizaveta Birger-Eroğlu

About the final list we got, it seems important to say a few things. 
First of all, that the resulting list was a balanced decision. The personal choice of each of us looks a little different, but on the whole we were able to agree on a single result. This result does not seem to me to be a compromise; on the contrary, it reflects the diversity of both our interests and the books nominated for the prize. And the fact that the result was rather motley reflects, perhaps, the main tendency of this period - the absence of any tendencies. 
 
This year's short list is a testament to a time when some topics have not yet had time to accelerate, and another locomotive, primarily intelligent biographies, has not yet had time to stop. The need to make sense of what's going on is incredibly already high, and there are still few opportunities to find the right words. Such voices mostly come from within the events, in direct reaction to the war. 
 
“I used to write grotesque, speculative stories. Now reality itself is grotesque. You don't have to make things up, only write them down,” writes Andrei Krasnyashchikh in his book (1). Although this strategy of writing down rather than inventing seems to be the most appropriate for the moment, one wishes that it were not the only one, that there were more possibilities for reflection. And despite the variety of texts on the list, all of them seem to me to have this working, if not with the present, then with the past that has brought us to this particular point.
 
Outside of this list there were a few texts that pleased and surprised me, and I'd like to mention them. Asya Mikheeva's “Borders of the Medium” (2) -. 
 An incredibly talented and complex piece of fiction that finds what I think is the perfect metaphor for the future us. It's hard to evaluate it without being from within the genre, but the author's work is impossible not to admire. I really liked Alexei Fuchs's text “Bernhard N” (3), a vivid modernist writing on the theme of orphanhood and growing up between peoples and cultures, which is not alien to the prize. Many autobiographical texts were nominated for the prize, but the most dear to me was Mikhail Goncharok and his “Serpentine” (4), with its wandering between the fantastic and the real, where the past is seen as a funny and vivid dream. Valery Bochkov's short collection Babye lettre (5) pleased me both with its aspiration to the future and its ability to add a good bit of absurdity to that future.
 
ABOUT THE FINALISTS

Sergei Davydov. “Springfield.”

Objectively one of the most notable books of 2023, Springfield is a story of the search and possibility of freedom in an unfree space. It is a very dramaturgical text, it is all built on a rapid exchange of lines, jokes, dialogues, gags. And through such a fireworks of images, the characters, young men in love from Togliatti in 2021, assert with all their might their right to be alive and to love each other. Even editing errors and repetitions within the text seem to become part of this freedom - to be as you want to be, to write as you want to write, without looking back at social conventions and other morals. Breakthroughs in literature are often set up as riots, but “Springfield” is no less important as a social commentary, its purpose not to shock the reader, but to see with the reader at least a temporary escape from the death grip of society and the state. There are no illusions in this text, but there is hope.
 
Nikolai Kononov. “The Night We Disappeared”
 
In each of the three parts of Nikolai Kononov's novel “The Night We Disappeared” the heroes from the present discover some document from the past, an audio tape, letters, records of interrogations. And each of these documents reveals a rather fantastic story of its hero. These are stories of fugitives - people who, as a result of the catastrophes of the twentieth century, were forced to literally become someone else, to change their country, their occupation. For people of our time, immersion in the other turns out to be a radical opportunity to experience “the experience of entering the tornado of time and kinship with the ghosts shivering in it.” But the novel does not try to tell typical stories of the twentieth century, and documentary as a technique only emphasizes the unreality and ghostliness of the narrative. Kononov's idea is not only that the past cannot be silenced and forgotten, it always returns (and therefore, contrary to the title of the novel, no one disappears). He also shows how working with memory expands our knowledge and perceptions of the world to almost mystical proportions, making them multidimensional.
 
Melamed, Victor. Dickson
 
The first artistic text by artist and graphic artist Victor Melamed makes a rather stunning impression - it is an absurdist text whose plot is almost impossible to retell and whose characters seem to be parodies of themselves. In a sense, the moment in which we read this turbulent, unsettling text determines how we inevitably perceive it. The more turbulent the outside, the more disturbing the reading. Yet even in such a small space, Melamed manages to achieve some human dimension to the text, his characters appear sympathetic and alive rather than mere absurdist masks, and a sounding word, even the disintegrating lines of Pushkin, becomes an incantation of consolation.

Mikhail Edelstein

Twenty years ago, maybe more, the novel as a genre fell apart, split in two. The traditional novel -- with a plot, a family history, a love line, the kind of “foresights” -- finally became the property of serial screenwriters. It is hard for me to imagine a text of this kind that would look “justified” in the current historical and literary context. As an opposition to it, the highbrow prose of graduates of philology departments and other humanities has been promoted and publicized -- endlessly boring, flirtatious, flaunting erudition and deliberately complicated pseudo-essays pretending to be works of fiction.
In this situation, it seems to me, texts that occupy an intermediate position, crossing, mixing in exclusive authorial proportions realism, modernism and postmodernism, fiction and document, fiction and autofiction, combining complexity of construction with the ability and desire to tell a human story, striving to fascinate the reader with intellectual play and at the same time to “infect” him with emotion, acquire special value. If there's one “trend” on our shortlist, it's probably this one.
Of the things that were not shortlisted but deserve all attention, I would like to single out the prose of Natalia Gromova and Boris Belkin (1), Ruslan Komadei's uneven but vivid text “Krym-tupik” ;2), which transforms almost publicistic content into avant-garde madness, and Alexei Fuchs's well-complex and also not devoid of healthy madness, “Bernhardt N.” (3), about a young man's getting stuck between languages and cultures. (3)about a young man's getting stuck between languages and cultures.

Nikolai Aleksandrov

Comparing, contrasting, and even more so choosing between works of different genres and artistic practices is extremely difficult, even if one adheres to the well-known rule: “the artist must be judged according to the laws he himself has set before himself”. Indeed, how to compare the colorful, lyrical and light novel narrative of Sergei Soloviev (“Shakti's Smile”) and the screaming, pain-breathing works of Maria Galina and Andrei Krasnyashchy (“God is +/-”); how to compare the documentary-biographical study of Alexander Goldfarb (“The Story of Father, Son, Spies, Dissidents and the Secrets of Biological Weapons”), the absurdist fiction of Victor Melamed and the canonical romance writing of Karina Coquel-Ferré and Nikolai Kononov ("Lusha, “The Night We Disappeared“), the elegant essayism of Igor Pomerantsev (”My First Bomb Shelter“) and the ironic art-documentary experiment of Roman Osminkin and Anastasia Vepreva (”Kommunalka na Petrogradka") (1). Not to mention a number of noteworthy texts that were left out of the finals and the difference in the opinions of the experts themselves.
But it is precisely this dissimilarity and diversity of the shortlisted works that make it, in my opinion, both attractive and revealing. It is a very curious cross-section of contemporary Russian-language literature, allowing us to judge both stylistic trends and the key issues of the present time, with its chaos, confusion and catastrophes. And a man facing a collapsing world.

Notes

Evgeniya Vezhlyan
 
¹Anna Berseneva. Rhine gold. — Toronto: «Litsvet», 2023; https://babook.org/drupal/sites/default/files/2024-03/Gold1.pdf);

Karina Cockrell-Ferré. Lucha - K.: Oleg Fedorov's Publishing House, 2022.https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/lusha.html?srsltid=AfmBOoq3vJfPAKsbFZyYtcDwu-r8GLdPjmXrRn6GUBYVzVZD-HYglcpz);

Alla Dubrovskaya. The orange tree - K.: Oleg Fedorov's Publishing House, 2023.https://vtoraya-literatura.com/pdf/dubrovskaya_apelsinovoe_derevo_2023__izd.pdf);

Nikolai V. Kononov. The Night We Disappeared. — Moscow: Individuum, 2022 (https://individuum.ru/books/noch-kogda-my-ischezli/);

Anna Krasilshchik. The Mystery of Monsieur Carotte.— М.: Belaya vorona, 2023 (https://murawei.de/r017727.html)
 
²Daria Serenko. I wish ashes to my house - Tel Aviv. Babel Bookstore Publishing House, 2023 (https://babelbooksberlin.com/products/я-желаю-пепла-дому-своему?srsltid=AfmBOopta8v6ki7M_3U0VV2NZ8YW2SKsP6Y81i8q_xeYh95wtdwnX2Fk);

Roman Osminkin, Anastasia. Vepreva Kommunalka on Petrogradka.  - M.: Novoye literaturnoye obozrenie, 2022 (https://www.nlobooks.ru/books/khudozhestvennaya_slovesnost/24283/);

Sergei Davydov. “Springfield.” — Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/books/springfild); Riva Evstifeeva. Internship Stories. — Éditions Tourguenef, 2023 (https://www.globusbooks.com/pages/books/12342/r-evstifeeva/internatskie-rasskazy);

Marja Malmi. My green face says it all. - M.: Belaya vorona; Albus Corvus Publishing, 2023 (https://albuscorvus.ru/product/na-moem-zelenom-litse-vse-napisano/)
 
³Dmitry Bykov. The majority: a collection of stories. Freedom Letters, 2023. (https://freedomletters.org/books/bol-shinstvo)

Alexander Ilichevsky. Narrow sky, wide river. - Tel Aviv. Publishing House
Babel Bookstore, 2023 (https://www.vidimbooks.com/products/ilichevsky/440857000000398274?srsltid=AfmBOorh47oAFd4B6f9bgkn3umdbp2QJiveXtEeXms7hjo0hwLCSGcbO).

Alexei Makushinsky. Demetrius: A Novel. — Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/authors/40).
 
⁴Andrei Ivanov. Under a caressing star. - Tallinn: Avenarius, 2023 (https://rahvaraamat.ee/p/pod-laskovoj-zvezdoj/1951163/ru?isbn=9789985834657);

Stanislav Snytko. History of prose in descriptions of the Earth. - M.: Novoye literaturnoye obozrenie, 2023 (https://murawei.de/r019799.html);
Ruslan Komadei. Krym-tupik / Polyphemus. — Moscow, 2022 (https://books.google.de/books/about/Крым_тупик.html?id=5O2XzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y)
 
⁵Natalia Gromova. House Museum. - Sefer Publishing House, Israel, 2023 (https://www.knigasefer.com/books/other?pgid=ltztrgcj-a98d00e4-c8a1-4574-b11c-c645798ac4b4);
Peter Aleshkovsky. Chronicles of the Russian-Ukrainian war. - Jerusalem: MG Library, 2022 (https://libertylisbon.com/books/p-aleshkovskij-hroniki-russko-ukrainskoj-vojny/)
 
 
Elizaveta Birger-Eroğlu
 
¹Andrei Krasnyashchikh. God is +/- — Freedom Letters, 2023. (https://freedomletters.org/books/bog-est)
²Asya Mikheeva. Boundaries of the medium. — Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/books/granitsy-sred)
³Alexei Fuchs. Bernhard N.: A novella, 2022 Literary and art magazine Zerkalo, Bedek Media Group (https://zerkalo-litart.com/?p=13382)
⁴Mikhail Goncharok. Serpentine. - Boston: Impress, 2022 (https://mgraphics-books.com/product/serpentine-goncharok/)
⁵Valery Bochkov. Indian Summer: Stories after the end of the world. New York: Freedom Letters, 2023 (https://freedomletters.org/books/babe-leto-povesti-posle-kontsa-sveta)
 
 
Mikhail Edelstein

¹Natalia Gromova. House Museum. - Sefer Publishing House, Israel, 2023 (https://www.knigasefer.com/books/other?pgid=ltztrgcj-a98d00e4-c8a1-4574-b11c-c645798ac4b4);
 
Boris Belkin. Surprise. – Freedom letters, 2023 (https://babook.org/drupal/sites/default/files/2023-12/TwoVoices1.pdf)
 
²Ruslan Komadei. Krym-tupik / Polyphemus. — Moscow, 2022 (https://books.google.de/books/about/Крым_тупик.html?id=5O2XzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y)
 
³Alexei Fuchs. Bernhard N.: A novella, 2022 Literary and art magazine Zerkalo, Bedek Media Group (https://zerkalo-litart.com/?p=13382)
 
 
Nikolai Aleksandrov
 
¹Sergey Soloviev. Shakti's smile- M.: Novoye literaturnoye obozrenie, 2022 (https://www.nlobooks.ru/books/khudozhestvennaya_slovesnost/24377/)
 
Andrei Krasnyashchikh. God is +/- — Freedom Letters, 2023. (https://freedomletters.org/books/bog-est)
 
Maria Galina. Near the war. Odessa. February 2022 - Lut 2023. - Jerusalem: Michael Greenberg Library (https://libertylisbon.com/books/m-galina-vozle-vojny/)
 
Alexander Goldfarb. A story about father, son, spies, dissidents and the secrets of biological weapons. – М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2023 (https://www.labirint.ru/books/948460/)

Victor Melamed. Dickson - Tel Aviv. Babel Bookstore Publishing House, 2023 (https://www.libristo.es/es/libro/pgt-dikson_44107072)
 
Karina Cockrell-Ferré. Lucha - K.: Oleg Fedorov's Publishing House, 2022.https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/lusha.html?srsltid=AfmBOoq3vJfPAKsbFZyYtcDwu-r8GLdPjmXrRn6GUBYVzVZD-HYglcpz)
 
Nikolai V. Kononov. The Night We Disappeared. — Moscow: Individuum, 2022 (https://individuum.ru/books/noch-kogda-my-ischezli/);
 
Igor Pomerantsev. My first bomb shelter. - K.: Oleg Fedorov's Publishing House, 2023.https://shafa.ua/sport/knyhy/khudozhestvennyye/169785685-igor-pomerancev-moyo-pervoe-bomboubezhishe?srsltid=AfmBOopBdIimfJyfoSh-1MUhZOxB35lq3AtrxDj1X9zLr5SBRdBl0PZf)
 
Roman Osminkin, Anastasia. Vepreva Kommunalka on Petrogradka.  - M.: Novoye literaturnoye obozrenie, 2022 (https://www.nlobooks.ru/books/khudozhestvennaya_slovesnost/24283/);