Mikhail Elizarov


Mikhail Yuryevich Elizarov – is a modern Russian writer and singer-songwriter, laureate of the Russian Booker Prize in 2008 for the novel The Librarian.

Literary career

In 2001, the Russian publishing house Ad Marginem issued a collection of short novels Fingernails, which immediately captured the attention of the media and critics. The collection includes 24 short stories and a novel of the same title, the main characters of which are two pupils who possess paranormal abilities studying in a boarding school for demented children. The story was shortlisted for the Andrei Bely literary prize. Russian literary critic Lev Danilkin of the Afisha magazine hailed the collection as the best debut of the year.
The next Elizarov's novel Pasternak prompted controversial polemic among Russian critics. In this anti-liberal and anti-sectarian lampoon, the poet Boris Pasternak is depicted in the form of a demon who "poisons" the intelligentsia's minds with his works. Some critics categorized the book as "trash", "a sickening novel". Literary critic Alla Latynina wrote in Novy Mir, that the novel has "an unpretentious, rather pop culture plot". The Continent magazine, in a review of literary criticism, wrote that "when brown comes into fashion, its fans appear in literary circles", calling the author of NG-Ex libris Lev Pirogov, who spoke favourably of the novel, "a Nazi-minded ideologist". Moreover, the magazine noted that the leitmotif of the criticism was "the crisis of liberal values, the entry into the arena of the enemies of freedom".
On the other hand, the critic Vladimir Bondarenko in Zavtra newspaper praised highly the novel: "This is where the unbridled Russian revenge showed itself in full splendor, as a response to all the humiliations and insults of the Russian nation, the Russian character, the Russian faith and the Russian dream... Through all a set of avant-garde literary techniques, through the philology of the text and dense erudition of the young writer, not inferior to either Umberto Eco, or Milorad Pavić, the unshakable centuries-old spiritual values of the Russian people are vehemently defended". Lev Danilkin labeled the novel as an "Orthodox philosophical action movie".
In 2007, Elizarov's novel The Librarian was published, which in December 2008 won him the Russian Booker Prize. The protagonist of the novel learns that some books of a forgotten Soviet writer possess mystical properties, and various groups of readers are waging a fierce battle to get them. As was noted by Anna Kuznetsova in the Znamya magazine, "Mikhail Elizarov's prose seems to be evolving like Vladimir Sorokin's: from scandalous shockingness to fiction rich in intellectual content". In 2015 the novel was translated to English by Andrew Bromfield and issued in Pushkin Press, London. Jeff VanderMeer highly praised the novel as "immensely entertaining" and compared it to works of Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, "while being very much its own thing". A television adaptation came out in 2023.
In 2011, the novel Cartoons became the finalist of the award National Bestseller.
In 2014, Elizarov won the NOS Prize in the nomination "Audience Choice Award" with the collection of short stories named We went out to smoke for 17 years. Mikhail Elizarov says, that "if we assume that the writer has two ink tanks on his desk with different kind of inks, then this book, unlike all my previous ones, is written entirely with the contents of the second ink tank. It has never happened to me before. A distinctive feature of this "second ink" is fiction. There is not a word of truth in this book". Nevertheless, the short stories in this collection are written in rather autobiographical, true-to-life style, uncharacteristic of all his previous books.
After almost six years of "silence", Mikhail Elizarov published a new book in October 2019. Titled Earth, the new novel is the first large-scale reflection on the "Russian Thanatos". As the Russian writer and critic Andrey Astvatsaturov notes in his review, "Elizarov seems to have written his best novel so far. Inspirational and at the same time masterful, mature, measured and carefully thought out from the first to the last paragraph. Despite the huge array of text, this book is only the first part of the novel Earth, titled The Digger". The plot unfolds itself around the protagonist who works in the funeral business in modern Russia and meets a mysterious young lady covered in tattoos.
Russian literary critic Viktor Toporov characterizes Elizarov as one of only two or three contemporary visionary writers of Russian literature

Musical career

In parallel to his literary activities, Mikhail Elizarov also performs songs of his own composition. As of 2020, Elizarov's discography consists of eleven albums.

Literary works

  • Prose / Проза / Kharkov: "Torsing", 2000,
  • Fingernails / Ногти / Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2001,
  • Pasternak / Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2003,
  • Red film / Красная плёнка / Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2005,
  • The Librarian / Библиотекарь / Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2007,
  • Blocks / Кубики / Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2008,
  • Cartoons / Мультики / Moscow: AST, 2010,
  • Burattini, The Fascism has passed / Бураттини. Фашизм прошёл / Moscow: AST, 2011,, 978-5-271-36619-2
  • We went out to smoke for 17 years... / Мы вышли покурить на 17 лет… / Moscow: Astel, 2012,
  • Earth / Земля / Moscow: AST, 2019,

    Awards

  • Russian Booker Prize for the novel The Librarian.
  • Short-list of the Andrei Bely Prize, Fingernails.
  • Finalist of the National Bestseller award, Cartoons.
  • "Audience Choice Award" NOS Prize, for the collection of short-stories We went out to smoke for 17 years.
  • Winner of the National Bestseller award, Earth.

    Translations

  • Mikhail Elizarov The Librarian / translated to English by Andrew Bromfield // Published by Pushkin Press, London, February 10, 2015 | 416 Pages |
  • Michail Jelizarow "Die Nägel" / translated to German by Hannelore Umbreit // Leipzig: "Reclam", 2003, 128 Seiten,,
  • Mikhail Elizarov "Le Bibliothécaire" / translated to French by Françoise Mancip-Renaudie // Paris: "Calmann-Lévy", 2010, 384 p.,,
  • Mikhail Jelizarov "Neglene" / translated to Danish by Jon Kyst // København: "Forlaget Vandkunsten", 2010, 120 sider,,
  • Michail Elizarov "Il bibliotecario" / translated to Italian by S. Guagnelli // Roma: "Atmosphere libri", 2011, 436 p.,,
  • Mihail Jelizarov "Knjiga mudrosti" / translated to Serbian by Vesna Kecman // Beograd : "Alnari", 2012, 320, с.
  • Michail Elizarov "Cartoni" / translated to Italian by Giulia Marcucci // Roma: Atmosphere libri, 2012, 238, .
  • Mihhail Jelizarov "Raamatuhoidja" / translated to Estonian by Veronika Einberg // Tallinn: Varrak, 2012, 359.

    Discography

  • 2010 — Notebook / Notebook
  • 2011 — It makes me mad / Зла не хватает
  • 2011 — About the goat / Про козла
  • 2012 — I'll post / Запощу
  • 2012 — We went out to smoke for 17 years / Мы вышли покурить на 17 лет
  • 2013 — The house and paints / Дом и краски
  • 2014 — Book of complaints / Жалобная книга
  • 2015 — Ragnarök / Рагнарёк
  • 2017 — In bright phuck / В светлом ахуе
  • 2018 — Soldier's grunge / Солдатский гранж
  • 2020 — Sectarian album / Сектантский альбом

    Reviews

  • James Lovegrove / Financial Times, May 1, 2015
  • Matt Dorfman / The New York Times, December 11, 2015
  • Jane Graham, The power of words. The Librarian / The boy who stole Attila's horse / The Big Issue, p. 31, March 23–29, 2015
  • Karen Langley / Shiny New Books
  • Isabel Lower / Asymptote Journal, April 28, 2015
  • Elena Dimov / Contemporary Russian Literature, University of Virginia, November 28, 2019
  • Oksana Sizykh / Revista de Humanidades / No. 30. January–April 2017
  • Zoran Rosko / zorosko.blogspot.com, September 27, 2013
  • Luke Goldstein / Gobs of reviews, January 8, 2015
  • Tom Ruffles / The Joy of Mere Words, Book notes by Tom Ruffles, PhD, August 17, 2017
  • Ted Hodgkinson / Literary Review, May 2015
  • David Gillespie , Open Democracy, May 19, 2015
  • Eliot Borenstein / Russia's alien nations, September 17, 2019
  • Phoebe Taplin / Russia Beyond, April 22, 2015
  • Tobias Carrol / tor.com, June 15, 2016

    Interviews

  • // "ШО", №?, September 24, 2012
  • // ThankYou.ru, August 21, 2012
  • // Rossiyskaya Gazeta, June 17, 2009