Not Prilepin: The Big Book Prize has announced the winners of 2023

On December 5, the winners of the next season of the Big Book, the country’s largest award in the field of prose, were announced in Moscow.

The MK correspondent came to the Pashkov House and heard three names out of fifteen finalists. Based on the results of the work of the Literary Academy, which includes 104 experts, three winners were determined.

The winner of the first place, according to the editor of the magazine “October” Irina Barmetova, significantly broke away from the “competitors”.

So, bronze – y Alexey Salnikov for the novel “Occulttraeger”.

“Silver” went to Yuri Buida for the book “The Gift of Speech”.

Finally, the first place winner was Evgeniy Vodolazkinawarded for the novel “Chagin”.

In the ceremony hall, where almost the entire literary elite of Russia gathered, the results were greeted with applause.

Earlier, based on the results of the “popular vote,” Zakhar Prilepin’s book “Sholokhov. Illegal” was in first place, but this is hardly an important indicator. In total, more than five thousand readers took part in the online book elections, but Prilepin has almost three hundred thousand followers on Telegram alone and a well-organized support group of like-minded writers. So it was not difficult for him to influence the final figure on the Internet.

The Russian Guard writer, who came to the ceremony in person, despite his health condition, does not hide this: from the stage he said that a blogger can influence such processes if he has his own audience.

In general, the academicians had the last word – and they made their verdict.

Let us remind you that on social networks today they urged not to rejoice at the first “people’s” place – they say that in this way they were preparing to remove Prilepin from the top three winners.

That’s exactly what happened.