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He compared his work with that of his famous predecessor , 18th century novelist turned historian Nikolai Karamzin who wrote the seminal text of Russian history also entitled History of the Russian State (1818-24). Other than Karamzin, Akunin pointed out, no Russian writer has been able to create a lot of interest in history among general public.




The Institute for Literary Translation has announced a grant aided programme targeted at publishers who are willing to translate and publish in a foreign language a work written in Russian and other languages spoken in the Russian Federation.
Grants will be awarded within the federal program “Culture of Russia (2012-2018)”.

The long-list for the 2013 Russian Booker Prize for the best Russian language novel figures 24 works. The long-list selection was made after the jury had familiarised themselves with the complete 87 works nominated, 82 of which were in contention for the prize. Taking part in the nomination process were 58 publishing houses, 10 magazines, 5 universities and 10 libraries.


Oliver Ready, Director of Russkiy Mir Programme, and Robert Chandler, a British poet and translator, named the two-day workshop as a “Translator's Coven”, which they considered to be an informal and relatively humble gathering of working translators.

Dmitry Glukhovsky, author of the popular Metro 2033 and Metro 2034, as well as Tales from the Motherland has started to publish his new novel The Future on his web-page on the Russian social network V Kontakte, Facebook facsimile, where he has over a hundred thousand followers.

Book industry experts comment on Amazon’s alleged entrance into the Russian market
This event has been long expected by experts in the field and at the end of April it became known that Amazon, the largest online retailer in terms of sales volume, was ready to officially launch on to the Russian market, registering its trademark Amazon Technologies Inc. in Russia. The Russian division of Amazon will be run by Arkadii Vitruk, the former general director of the publishing house “Azbuka –Atticus” who left his post there in the middle of 2012.


To celebrate the joys of spring the masleenitza Russian week will come to London and will be offering both culinary and cultural delights.
On Wednesday the 13th of March between 18.30 and 20.00 lovers of Russian literature and poetry are invited to a literary performance hosted by Waterstones at their Piccadilly branch.
One again Slovo Russian Literature Festival has come to London. Three weeks of March from 5th March to 26th March will be packed with the exciting events including dialogs, discussions and inspiring lecturers by the acclaimed Russian authors including Dmitry Bykov, Mikhail Shishkin, Vera Polozkova, Vladimir Sharov and Evgeny Vodolazkin.

This year’s National Bestseller Long List has come as a bit of a surprise to many as there are very few non-fiction entries amongst the 46 nominees.
According to Victor Toporov, the executive secretary of the Prize, it also includes quite a number of collections of short stories, whilst historically novels have primarily dominated the lists.
![Boris Akunin: ‘Translation is the second cleanest profession [in the USSR]’ Boris Akunin: ‘Translation is the second cleanest profession [in the USSR]’](/upload/resize_cache/iblock/e56/100_200_10240811ca8906714d1a9f41f2f5b358d/e5645c7e462fadb57d7b177a250ee255.jpg)
On February 4th publishers, editors and translators gathered together at Kings Place, London to celebrate the awarding of the annual Translation Prize for published translations into English by the UK Society of Authors.
The Sebald Lecture given annually to honour literature in translation is an integral part of the ceremony. This year Russian author Boris Akunin delivered a lecture entitled ‘Paradise lost: confessions of an Apostate Translator’ carring on a tradition set up in the previous years by Seamus Heanet, Susan Sontag, Will Self and Ali Smith.