OLGA SLAVNIKOVA WINS THE 2006-2007 GJENIMA PRIZE IN LITERATURE
Today we recognize a most deserving candidate for the Gjenima prize for her excellent writing and also for her undaunted support for many emerging young writers. Olga Slavnikova comes amongst us today all the way from Yekaterinburg, Russia, where she entered on her path to tremendous success as a literary critic and an editor.
She is not only one of Russia's most talked about discoveries but also one of the nine foremost women contemporary Russian writers. She has given a world of passionate words to A Dragon-fly the Size of a Dog, Immortal and Alone in the Mirror, to name a few. These works of fiction have been translated into English, Italian, French, and German. She has penned five prize winning novels that have been shortlisted for Russian Booker Prize, Belkin National Bestseller prize, Anti-Booker; and awarded Pavel Bazhov, and Critics' Academy Apollon Grigoriev prize. Her most recent novel, 2017, was awarded the Russian Booker Prize for 2006. In 2017 she covers the trajectory of time by looking at October Revolution a hundred years from the future. She reminds us that we cannot create a future that we cannot account for. Interestingly, this novel received the Russian Booker Price in two nominations: The Booker Prize proper and the Students Booker, impressing the judges from different generations and bringing them together in appreciation of Slavnikova's talent.
Her fiction is in harmony with her cosmopolitan spirit that looks at the world from the eyes of the future. She is the coordinator of the Debut Prize for young writers that draws annual 50,000 entries from writers under twenty-five and writing in Russian. In 2005, she participated in the Open World Cultural Leaders Program, sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Through Gjenima Prize, today we honor Olga Slavnikova who is changing the world one word and one young writer at a time. She is certainly a great inspiration not only as a powerful writer who gives back to the world more than she receives but also as someone who reminds us to pause and think about the world to which she gives.
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